I love a foxglove. But I’ve never bought one. There are currently about 40 in flower in my urban patch and I’ve given away about 20 more. They’ve just self seeded EVERYWHERE.
At first I though I’d dig them up in early spring, and they would just fill a few gaps, but with the hot weather they’ve taken over a little, and I’m already planning what to do to stop them taking over next year.
This is the second year of my ‘new’ garden, which I’ve developed from the previously overgrown ‘wilderness garden’ of my old neighbouring plot. And despite really trying to space them out, they’ve gone a bit nuts.
Foxgloves, or Digitalis to give them their Latin name, self seed everywhere. But they’re also biennial, which means the first year they pop up you just get leaves, and the second you get these magnificent spikes of flowers.
The most common is the purple one, Digitalis Purpurea (purpurea = purple, alba = white, red = rubra, viridis = green, nigra = black), gardening names like both colours and animals (foxglove, dogrose, harebell, cowslip etc).
Mine are mostly either purple or white, although there are some that look like they’ll be white but develop to pink, presumably hybridised.
Over the winter I was digging up the seedlings from just about everywhere, cracks in paving, beds, raised veg beds, pots they weren’t meant to be in, and shoved them quite roughly into whatever pot they fitted in, sometimes in twos and threes.
In their first year they look like this: just leaves, and you won’t get flowers off them.
Then in March the following year they start to throw out new leaves – you can yank off any manky ones at the base and they take quite brutal handling. Worth noting the whole plant is poisonous, but to be honest I’ve never had a rash or anything from handling them and certainly wouldn’t eat them.
The ones currently dominating my plot probably won’t flower again next year, but if I leave them to self seed it will be overwhelmed again in 2028, so I’m already planning to be a bit more careful with the seedpods.
The flower spikes produce loads of pods as the flowers drop, and if I let them brown they will just shed billions of seeds everywhere. I’ve already got some in pots that I know will flower next year and I’ll just be a bit more sparing with them.
Cut here ⇨
So I’ll cut the spikes at the base of the bottom of the seed pods as soon as the top flowers are done – not right to the base, as I know I’ll get loads of side flower spikes first – they’ve already thrown a lot out this year presumably due to the heatwave in May.
I’m going to put all the spent stems into a bucket where they’ll brown off and the seeds will drop to the bottom. Yes, I’ll try and keep the white and purple ones separate but inevitably I’ll mess it up. Then I’ll sow again in seed trays or pots and try and keep a grip on how many I do. If you dig up a completely spent plant, you’ll probably find there are already little offshoots already growing at the base, and you can pot them up too.
It’s not just me that loves them, the number of different bees we’ve had this year has been amazing – honey bees, fat bumblebees, bees with white bums, red bums, black bums, hoverflies, they zoom in headfirst and back out covered in pollen and move to the next flower.
My camera skills aren’t fast enough to catch them although my other half Steve Scoles at The Nenequirer has been making little slo-mo videos of them. (see below).
Each flower has a slightly hairy ‘doormat’ and the pollen is held at the top of the far end, so insects have to get right in and then back out. Then the pollen from one type gets spread to another when they visit multiple plants and you get seeds that may not look exactly like the parent plant. Magic.
There are lots of hybridised foxgloves you can buy, some with unusual shapes and amazing colours in the ‘doormat’ and they’re available in creams, peaches and yellows as well as some unusual chocolaty ones. The National Collection of digitalis is in Wiltshire and you can buy from their online shop.
So can you have too many foxgloves? Yeah, probably, but who cares! Enjoy them while they last…
Hilary Scott Writes 