You will get better germination from plants that are closer to the species.
The great big marigolds, sometimes called African marigolds, I find to be
very poor at germination in the second year. The smaller French ones do
better, and the signets do the best of all. I have found this with cosmos as
well. The taller older varieties self-sow like crazy and more or less come
true from seed. The new smaller variety, sonata, which is more desirable in
most garden schemes does not self-sow nearly as vigorously, and when it
does, I have found that the second season's flowers are smaller.
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "Derryl Killan" contains these words:

Hi Buzzy - The plants that you collect seeds from are hybrids and they
are
not viable seeds. F1 hybrids do not set viable seeds.

Of course they do. The seeds of an F1 won't produce identical flowers
to the plant they came from; but in a plant like marigold, that hardly
matters. All of them will flower and the flowers will be pretty.

The OP may not have collected or stored her home-grown seeds very
well, resulting in poor germination. They need to be collected on a dry
day when they are fully mature, dried off in a cool dry atmosphere to
prevent moulds forming, and stored in a cool dark dry frostfree place. I
put mine in old envelopes which I store in biscuit tins (protects
against mice/insects)in a cool cupboard.

Janet.