So some of the old spikes have had new spikes (the ones that got cut off cleanly, not just died). And some of them have new green growth but not new spikes. These are the ones in the pot by the door (one of which is at least 2 years old) and a new spike on the one in the left hand bed.
Things I have learnt this year: foxgloves are more complicated than you think. Or more straightforward. If you cut them back, some come again. They might last for several years. They can have lots and lots of spikes at the same time, or a succession. Just because someone smacks them with a cricket ball or a hammock, doesn’t mean it’s over. But somtimes, if you cut them back after flowering, that’s it and they turn into stumps.
I think I’m ready to move onto something else now. Though I have collected and scattered the seed in a slightly more methodical fashion than usual this year, and am interested to see what happens…
Some got rained on so hard they broke; Luke, Ezra and Vincent fell a hammock on a few; Chris’s friend James hit some with his bike (or Chris did) and you always lose a couple to particularly fine cricket shots.
After it rained when I was away, it was very dry for a couple of days, so some appear weirdly to have completely dried out before setting seed (is this a virus or just dryness?).
I wonder what affect this will have on how many foxgloves we have in 2023. Maybe we won’t have any or the ones left will just have more offspring?
The ones with lots of of spikes are still doing well so I’m putting this picture in again just to make me happy.
The fox gloves are doing well. We’ve got about 14, white and purple. Some of them have been hit by hammocks and footballs and aren’t doing brilliantly. But some have grown other spikes, when the king spike got taken out. And others are just thriving, though they don’t like the really hot weather.
We can’t work out where all the foxgloves in this post are. But we have found this one:
how it started
how it’s going!
Edie shown for reference. She’s about 4 feet high. Both spikes have flowered but we don’t know which is the biggest, the old or the new.
I particularly like this one, with lots going on in one pot.
My new foxgloves seem to be growing out of old foxgloves…
I have lots of foxgloves, which have seeded across the garden, white ones and purple ones. After the flower spikes have dried and rattle with little seeds, I wave them round the beds, hoping they will seed and grow.
Bee
At the back
Sometimes, they seed, and then when I find them in places I don’t want them (in the lawn/ in pots/etc), I move them or stick them in little pots and plant them out later.
I once read an article which turned out to be by an American (sometimes you can’t tell until it says something like “superb for humming birds”) who used foxgloves as a cut-and-come-again flower, saying if you chopped them early enough, you got more spikes.
I’ve never dared do this but my kids and the actual foxes have snapped them off occasionally and I have got other spikes – though usually a bit more branched off than the first one.
Normally I pull them up once I’ve taken of the flower spikes/ seeds but this year I have left them – mostly in my attempt to leave stuff for bugs and not tidy up too much. Now the old gloves seem to be sprouting…
Old Foxglove, with new growth at base
Old foxglove stem with growth at the bottom…
.. and at the top too, like a palm tree
What is going on? This isn’t new plants, it’s last year’s ones. Maybe it has been so mild, they think it’s still the end of summer? Or might they do this sometimes if you don’t pull them up? I don’t know but I’m going to see what happens.
I’ve done some research!
But it’s still not completely clear. Apparently some foxgloves are perennial – but short lived, they only come though for a couple of years. And some, if you cut off the “king spire,” will grow flowering side branches. The problem is, I don’t know what my foxgloves are. I think one might be just plain woodland ones (the purple ones) but I don’t know what type the whites are.
Also an expert lady foxglove grower at Chelsea says the seeds lower down the spine tend to come true more than the ones lower down the spire.
My Garden 