MUST HAVE plants
New seed strains and perennial types are extending the remit of foxgloves as simply a cottage garden flower, says Sue Fisher
The majestic tall spires of foxgloves create glorious summer verticals of long-lasting, colourful flowers.
Although widely familiar as a wildflower and a favourite cottage garden bloom, there’s far more to foxgloves than initially meets the eye, with splendid new seed strains as well as less familiar perennial types. Offering masses of blooms from just a small footprint, with tubular flowers that open in sequence to look good for months, these hardy biennials and perennials are fantastic for many sites from borders and pots to wild gardens.
Spanning a wide geographical range across Central and Southern Europe, wild foxgloves grow from as far north as Siberia down to the Canary Islands and Madeira. There’s a total of 24 species and, because foxgloves lend themselves well to breeding, numerous hybrids– with colours from familiar mauves and whites to unusual shades including apricot, chocolate, rust and yellow, often speckled with darker spots within. In line with their diversity of origins, most are tough and hardy, though warmregion foxgloves can be tender or borderlinehardy, needing winter protection in the UK. Similarly, sun, shade and soil preferences vary, so scrap that mental picture of foxgloves just living in woodland glades!
Cool customers for partial shade and humus-rich soil include D. lutea, D. mertonensis and our native D. purpurea, though some sun-lovers thrive on welldrained soil, some with stunning silvery leaves, such as D. purpurea heywoodii, D. laevigata and ‘Silver Fox’. And the range of flower stem heights is massively varied, from knee to head-height. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, it’s about matchmaking the right plant to each place.
Foxgloves are perennial or biennial. Biennials germinate and form leafy growth in their first year, flowering the next, sometimes blooming a second year. Perennials tend to be short-lived but should last for at least 3–4 years. Differentiating between the two is important when buying because many foxgloves are now sold in full bloom, and it’s disappointing to splash out on a big, beautiful plant that lasts only one summer. Many foxgloves grow readily from seed: brilliant for budget-conscious gardeners or for going large and creating drifts or repeated groups of colours. While foxgloves and roses make classic partners, their graceful spires work well almost anywhere: among grasses, perennials and shrubs, making the most of tiny spaces and to add height to large containers.
