Foxglove?

[Beekissed]

I have never really been interested in foxglove but I found a lovely one at a local nursery and decided to get it. Anyone tell me something about this plant? Any special treatment or soil considerations it may need? I will be planting it where it will get morning sun, be partially shaded around noon to 4pm and then receive sun again til sundown. Does it like wet feet or well-drained? This spot will be well-drained. Will it naturally spread any or do I need to buy more of the same to have a good grouping later on? It is a pale yellow with a brown center.

 

[Carri]

It will send up shoots, don't worry! I really don't do anything special for mine. They are in the front planter box so they are lightly watered once a day (except we've just cut out two days to save water and money) and I don't give them any fertilizer. They have the same sun conditions as yours.

 

[Beekissed]

Thanks! I would like to add other colors if this does well here. I am slowly building up a flower garden here and want to go easy. My first inclination is to buy everything and throw it in but this place is almost devoid of flowers of any kind, so I don't know what will grow here. It is so hard to go slow and build up a step at a time, but I think it will look better in the long run.

 

[Reinbeau]

Foxgloves don't send up shoots, they're biennials, they grow one season and flower the next, although some will germinate very early and flower in the fall - I have them naturalized in my yard. They aren't invasive or anything, but they do spread by seed. Beekissed, it sounds like you have a good spot for them, they do like the semi-shade of a woodland type garden, although they'll pop up in full sun as long as the soil is usually evenly moist.

 

[patandchickens]

Sounds like a good spot. As Anne says, typical foxgloves are biennials (if you deadhead early and severely, *sometimes* you can get a rather poor second year of flowering but I don't see as it's worth it). So when it blooms this year, it will (hopefully) self-seed itself around, but next year all you will have is vegetative rosettes - the flowers will come year *after* next. Assuming you want yearly foxgloves, the smart thing is to buy another flowering-size plant or three next year, to take care of the "odd-numbered years"

They do not necessarily come true to color - some varieties mostly do, some varieties not at all - so it is likely you will get some degree of multicoloredness in the patch when they are self-seeding.

I will just add as a note, since you say yours is yellow, that there ARE a couple of perennial yellow foxgloves (I do not recall any having brown blotches, so I am guessing yours are *probably* just a yellow color of the usual biennials, but you should look it up and compare pictures of flowers to be sure -- google 'perennial yellow foxglove' or 'Digitalis grandiflora' or, er, I forget the name of the other one offhand.) They are smaller-flowered and less dramatic, but also IMO much more natural-looking and easier to work into an informal or naturalistic-type garden, than the fancy hybrid cultivars.

Have fun,

Pat

 

[Beekissed]

Man, you guys know your flowers!!! Thanks for all the good info! I won't expect much of a show out of this plant, then. I really bought it on a whim and it is not normally the type of flower I would go for....it was cheap and very big and healthy, so I couldn't resist!!!