The longer that I toil in the soil the more I appreciate versatile plants like digitalis, most often known as foxglove.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If foxgloves could only rewind the hose and spread mulch, they would be absolutely perfect.<\/p>\n
Most gardeners and flower lovers are familiar with foxglove.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Colors range from shades of white, cream and yellow, through the pink and peach range, to rose, purple and nearly black.\u00a0 The flowers’ lips or throats are often speckled in maroon, purple or brown.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 In practical terms, if you plant foxglove seeds or young plants two years running, you will have laid the groundwork for a perennial display.\u00a0 A single plant can produce tens of thousands of minute seeds, many of which germinate readily in the average garden.\u00a0 Once foxgloves get started, they do not know when to stop.\u00a0 Fortunately, young foxglove plants are easy to dig up and move around, so overpopulation is a blessing rather than a curse.<\/p>\n
For lovers of heirloom plants, foxglove is the ultimate old-fashioned favorite.\u00a0 It has been in domestic cultivation for centuries, first in Europe and then in the New World.\u00a0 In some places in the United States, the plants even pass for wildflowers, having escaped from gardens, self-seeded and spread into uncultivated areas.\u00a0 The word “digitalis”\u009d comes for the Latin word for finger, probably a reference to the thimble-shaped blossoms.\u00a0 The ancient Anglo-Saxons reportedly called the plant “foxes glofa”, and the contemporary common name is derived from that term.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
The plants may or may not have aided foxes, but digitalis has been used by humans for centuries.\u00a0 Consumed indiscriminately, all parts of the plant are poisonous.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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”\u009d.\u00a0 Physicians still prescribe drugs derived from digitalis plants.<\/p>\n
My garden is full of foxgloves.\u00a0 The tallest, which are in bloom now, are hybrids of Digitalis purpurea.\u00a0 Despite the Latin name, which comes from the word for “purple”\u009d, the flowers are pastel tinted.\u00a0 Popular purpurea hybrids include Giant Shirley and Excelsior, both of which are available in a variety of colors.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Ambigua, a perennial, is a particularly rampant self-seeder, and I find its offspring everywhere in my back garden.\u00a0 It has a secure place alongside Spanish bluebells and columbine in my rogues’ gallery of prolific ornamentals.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Another popular purpurea is Primrose Carousel, a tall variety that produces a large number of soft yellow blossoms.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 True or not, Pam’s Choice is a winner.<\/p>\n
Depending on your garden’s color scheme, you may also like Digitalis mertonensis or Merton’s foxglove, a perennial species with rosy flowers.<\/p>\n
Hypothetical ancient English foxes might have worn these colorful and winsome “gloves”\u009d, but deer will not consume them.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Most nurseries, garden centers and catalog vendors carry digitalis hybrids.\u00a0 To grow a more extensive range of species and cultivars from seed, try Thompson & Morgan Seedsmen, Inc.,<\/p>\n
220 Faraday Avenue, Jackson, NJ 08527<\/p>\n
; Phone (800) 274-7333; www.thompson-morgan.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The longer that I toil in the soil the more I appreciate versatile plants like digitalis, most often known as foxglove.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The plants also … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1750,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/1750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}