The longer that I toil in the soil the more I appreciate versatile plants like digitalis, most often known as foxglove. Planting a selection of foxglove species and cultivars in the garden will provide you with many weeks of colorful bloom in the spring and summer, but that is only the beginning. The plants also perennialize themselves by self-seeding, provide impressive flowers for cutting, thrive in dappled shade, don’t mind a little drought and are loathsome to deer and other plant predators. If foxgloves could only rewind the hose and spread mulch, they would be absolutely perfect.
Most gardeners and flower lovers are familiar with foxglove. Depending on the species, the flower stalks can be anywhere from eighteen inches to four feet tall, with scores of elongated bell-shaped flowers on each stalk. Colors range from shades of white, cream and yellow, through the pink and peach range, to rose, purple and nearly black. The flowers’ lips or throats are often speckled in maroon, purple or brown.
Some digitalis species are perennial or annual, but the most popular are biennial, meaning that the plants establish a basal rosette of leaves in one year, then flower, set seed and die in the second year. In practical terms, if you plant foxglove seeds or young plants two years running, you will have laid the groundwork for a perennial display. A single plant can produce tens of thousands of minute seeds, many of which germinate readily in the average garden. Once foxgloves get started, they do not know when to stop. Fortunately, young foxglove plants are easy to dig up and move around, so overpopulation is a blessing rather than a curse.
For lovers of heirloom plants, foxglove is the ultimate old-fashioned favorite. It has been in domestic cultivation for centuries, first in Europe and then in the New World. In some places in the United States, the plants even pass for wildflowers, having escaped from gardens, self-seeded and spread into uncultivated areas. The word “digitalis” comes for the Latin word for finger, probably a reference to the thimble-shaped blossoms. The ancient Anglo-Saxons reportedly called the plant “foxes glofa”, and the contemporary common name is derived from that term. According to one legend, elves or fairies gave digitalis blossoms to foxes to wear like mittens, muffling their footfalls while they were on their predacious rounds.
The plants may or may not have aided foxes, but digitalis has been used by humans for centuries. Consumed indiscriminately, all parts of the plant are poisonous. However, when the seeds and/or leaves are processed correctly, and the resulting substance prescribed appropriately, digitalis is an effective treatment for heart-related problems including edema or swelling due to fluid accumulation. William Withering, an English physician, experimented with digitalis in the late eighteenth century and found that it was effective for patients suffering from the hard-to-treat type of edema known then as “dropsy”. Physicians still prescribe drugs derived from digitalis plants.
My garden is full of foxgloves. The tallest, which are in bloom now, are hybrids of Digitalis purpurea. Despite the Latin name, which comes from the word for “purple”, the flowers are pastel tinted. Popular purpurea hybrids include Giant Shirley and Excelsior, both of which are available in a variety of colors.
Later in the summer, in another garden bed, the yellow bells of D. grandiflora Ambigua will bloom near several blue-flowered hydrangea, providing an appealing contrast. Ambigua, a perennial, is a particularly rampant self-seeder, and I find its offspring everywhere in my back garden. It has a secure place alongside Spanish bluebells and columbine in my rogues’ gallery of prolific ornamentals.
I am also fond of the lovely Digitalis purpurea variety known as Apricot Beauty, which should bloom in few weeks, along with the white cultivar called Alba. Another popular purpurea is Primrose Carousel, a tall variety that produces a large number of soft yellow blossoms.
When I find the right spot, I will buy, beg or borrow Pam’s Choice, another D. purpurea cultivar that sports white flowers with maroon throats. I remember reading somewhere that the progenitor of Pam’s Choice was a chance seedling that an English gardener found growing on her compost pile. True or not, Pam’s Choice is a winner.
Depending on your garden’s color scheme, you may also like Digitalis mertonensis or Merton’s foxglove, a perennial species with rosy flowers.
Hypothetical ancient English foxes might have worn these colorful and winsome “gloves”, but deer will not consume them. Combine them with the equally tall and poisonous aconite or wolf’s bane, which blooms in late summer, to form the backbone of a colorful deer proof border.
Most nurseries, garden centers and catalog vendors carry digitalis hybrids. To grow a more extensive range of species and cultivars from seed, try Thompson & Morgan Seedsmen, Inc.,
220 Faraday Avenue, Jackson, NJ 08527
; Phone (800) 274-7333; www.thompson-morgan.com. Free catalog.