Foxgloves are the most elegant flowers you can choose to decorate your garden. They are also the easiest to grow as they begin by developing a floral roseate arrangement at ground level and then grow upwards taller into double lipped petals. The developing statuesque petals can soon be plain white or bright yellow or a deep sprinkling of a rust shade. Once the hardy biennials are planted, they can come back every year and then five more after that.
As in my illustration, all the color usually attracts a living variety of hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, bumble bees, and double-winged damselflies. All are shown in my drawing, getting into the picture. In order to stimulate flowers already planted, a compound of Foxglove leaves called digitalis and ground up together will activate the heart muscle of each plant to grow faster and more decoratively.
Don’t be surprised if a slightly different appearance of seedlings may suddenly pop up out of the ground, and you may wish to transplant them elsewhere into a sunnier section of your garden where they may take off, reproduce and last for many more years to your complete astonishment. By pollinating beautiful hybrids, you may be glad to call yourself a green thumb gardener from your first attempt.
The origin of the name of Foxglove for flowers was taken from an English translation meaning that foxes really wore these flowers on their paws to silence their movements as they slyly hunted their prey. The woody hillsides where foxes made their dens would be covered with flowers under the name of “witch’s glove” in reference to the poison of the plant itself. Foxgloves are actually deadly for dogs and other animals as well as human beings.
However, neither people nor animals have any good reason to eat them. It may be said that Foxgloves can be labeled as deer resistant around your country cottage property.
To purchase Foxglove flowers, they can be bought by mail order or in large pot containers in retail flower garden shops. However, it will be to your benefit to act without further delay after reading my detailed concept of a Foxglove Party before it is too late to take advantage of the spring growing season.
By George B. Emmons