Not to get too redundant here, but my hollyhock post gave me good information. I thought I would try again for foxglove. What can you tell me about growing this? (digitalis.) Shade or sun? etc. I can look up the basics online, but I would love to hear your personal thoughts. Any problems with livestock eating it? etc.

Thanks again, all! You are the best!!!

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2001

Answers

Oh, well you just ARE turning into the perfect cottage gardener.

Foxglove likes shade. Too much sun and it'll burn right out. It grows well alongside hostas, and altho it will tolerate a bit less moisture, it really does prefer a nice moist and somewhat cool spot. If you've got ferns growing somewhere, chances are the foxglove would like to be next to them. I planted some at my one house on the side where the 'lawn' was actually about 75% moss, next to the ostrich ferns, and both of them went great guns, the foxglove reseeding itself with abandon.

It's a bienniel, grows one year, blooms the next and produces seed, then dies. There are also perennial versions of foxglove if you wish to pursue them...I think that there is a sort of pallid yellow, plus *I THINK* that 'Foxy' is a perennial, as well as a rather strawberry coloured one.

I planted some out next to a rock wall, but it was too exposed in the spring when the snow went but the temps still went to freezing and killed it (we're in zone 3/4A remember). The stuff in the woods under maple tree canopy in the mossy area did just fine, it was more protected. I've found wild patches of it out in the woods growing in damp areas between spruce trees. The stuff at my other house evens eeded itself in whiskey barrel planters and are coming up there. I'm carefully planting impatiens around them to see if they want to bloom next year. As far as I can remember, when I originally filled those barrels, I used regular potting soil with a high peat/bark content, and added some composted manure, but nothing else other than weeds have been growing in them for at least the last 6 years, not a speck of fertilizer added, so I think that they do well in a 'lean' soil.

I never planted them where my dogs or horses might be tempted to snack on the. When I see deer grazing around them, I find myself urging them to take "Just a TASTE -- c'mon, just ONE little BITE...oh please...." They never do. THey mow down my other flowers instead.

And that's all that I can think of for tonite.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2001

Sheepish, Oh now your talking! Foxglove is one of my favorites! So awesome! If you ever go to the countryside pictures, I believe I have one titled Foxgloves and you can see some in front of my house. The perinial one that Julie talks of is great but not near as showy as the biennial.. Lucky Julie, I haven't had much success with them self sowing here. I just keep plugging away putting more in every year for the next years blooms. I did have some come up in my sunny perinnial garden one year and they did better then the ones that I have in part shade. Like I say rules and me, dont mix! Foxgloves have got to be the most magical flower and there is alot of folklore connecting them with fairies in the garden. I believe that the wee folk use them as dresses , hats and petticoats. And if one of your Foxgloves bends over to the ground it is because it is protecting a fairy.I don't know but they sure do cast their spell on humans, when they are in full bloom in front of my house, I catch people stalled in their cars staring. One morning when they are blomming I am gonna go buy some dry ice and make everything misty and moody and have the girls dress up like faries and take some pictures. I am so jealous of Tasha Tudur, who has 6 foot foxgloves growing in her gardens. Mine have never reached those proportions, but them I'm not dead yet! Tren

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2001

Foxgloves are poisonous in quantity. They are digitalis, which is used for the heart, but your average person doesn't want to be messing around with them as medicine! This is why the deer won't eat them (and why Julie wants them to eat them). I've never heard that handling them is dangerous, but I'd wash my hands well afterwards, just to be sure.

Their name is not derived from some cute tale about foxes wearing gloves -- it's a corruption of folks gloves. The fairies, etc. were known as The Folk (you know, like the Wee Folk), and the blossoms were thought to serve them as gloves -- hence, folks gloves, later foxgloves.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2001

Very interesting! I have a spot where it's mostly shady, but filtered light gets through during part of the day. I do have hostas and ferns there, plus the azaleas, etc. I'll try it.

Where I grew up (in Seattle) we had three lots together (doesn't sound like much now! LOL) We had an old house that was one of the original farm houses in the area (used to be a filbert farm, I guess.) Anyway, the garden was old, old, old (by west coast standards) and we had lots of plants in it, just like I'm thinking I want to plant now! We had wisteria, foxglove, old roses, weigela, hawthorne, buddleia, those funny plants that we called "money trees", those little chinese lantern plants, and more that I can't think of. We had an old grapestake-type fence and just zillions of borders when we first moved in. Oh, yeah, and a pond. By the time I left home at 17, we had mostly lawn, no fence, no pond, and just survivors of the old plantings. Not that we didn't love plants, but my mom planted petunias, snapdragons, etc.; mostly annuals where the old perennials were planted. Of course, lawn was much easier with kids growing up, too.

Now I'm revisiting my earlier perennial past! Thanks again.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2001

I ain't no expert by any means but our foxgloves are growing in full sun and about 6' tall. I'm not sure if they're the biennial or perennial. They're planted in a bed about 2' wide by 4' long. The bed is entirely composed of composted leaves enriched with blood meal, bone meal and some wood ashes and they ARE pretty. I hope to grow enuf of them next year so we can take a bunch to the farmers mkt for cut flowers.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2001

Sheepish, since we're almost neighbors, maybe my experience with foxglove will be of use to you.

At my last place, a quarter mile away, we could never get foxgloves to do more than barely survive. I've since discovered that our soil up here at the new place (imported) grows EVERYTHING better than the stuff (I hesitate to call it soil, even though we did work on it for 20 years)

We transplanted the poor foxgloves that were still alive from the old place. They proceeded to GROW. They got about six feet tall, also. Then the weirdest thing happened. The started blooming, and continued to bloom all through the winter--rain or shine, snow or blow. Ice or frost. They had to be staked, because we had the wettest winter in history (1996-7) and lots of windy storms.

They are still kicking butt, but they haven't bloomed all winter again.

As you must know, these flowers grow wild and healthy all along the oregon and Calif (and I presume Washington) coast. So I always figured they'd do best in cooler climates than here. But they are doing great here, regardless of how much sun they get. We do have all our stuff on electonically controlled sprinkler systems, so they get just the right amount of water, I guess.

They are also reknowned as the perfect "natural" toilet paper. I have experimented with this when caught off guard out in the woods, over on the coast, and it's true.

Good luck!

JOJ

I've never seen anything like it.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Mine are surviving, but not thriving. Not sure if it's b/c of the cool and then warm ("hot") temperatures we have been having, or perhaps they weren't getting as much water while we were gone, or perhap they were getting too much (looks like we had some big rain storms last week.)

I think they need to be staked b/c they are sort of falling over. They are only a coupla feet tall, too, btw.

I'll keep the toilet paper info filed in my grey matter. However, we are still only half-way through our Y2k stash!!! Guess I overestimated on that quantity! But these folky things are nice to remember. Thanks.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001