Foxglove

I brought Foxglove home six months ago with high hopes and almost no knowledge. The first challenge was understanding avoiding any fertiliser which would favour grasses over flowers — something I hadn't expected to matter so much. Once I got that right, the whole thing settled down. I grow it in a …

I planted Foxglove primarily for ornamental reasons. What I didn't anticipate was the wildlife it would attract. naturalistic aesthetic that suits modern ecological gardens seems to be particularly appealing to bees and butterflies during the main growing period. I grow it in a roadside or verge pl…

I've grown several varieties within the Foxglove family and have some observations to share. exceptional wildlife value for bees, butterflies, and hoverflies varies noticeably between them, more than catalogue descriptions suggest. The care fundamentals are shared — scarifying or scratching the soil…

I had a serious problem with dog walkers or trampling on unmown meadow areas on my Foxglove earlier this year. Caught it late and had to work hard to bring the plant back. The experience was frustrating but educational. Now that it's healthy again I can fully appreciate wide seasonal succession fro…

I don't have a garden so a container with a meadow mix for a balcony is my only option for Foxglove. It absolutely works — with the right attention to sowing directly into poor soil as rich soil encourages weeds you can get excellent results in containers. exceptional wildlife value for bees, butte…

Here are my notes from twelve months of growing Foxglove: Spring: peak flowering from early to midsummer. This was the moment that confirmed the whole venture. I focused on avoiding any fertiliser which would favour grasses over flowers during this period which set up the rest of the year. excepti…

Someone gave me Foxglove as a birthday gift and I barely knew what it was. Two years later it's my most treasured plant and I've spent more time researching it than I'd care to admit. The key discovery was allowing plants to set seed before cutting at the end of season — once that clicked, the plan…

My first attempt at Foxglove failed — rabbits and slugs targeting young seedlings got hold of it and I didn't know what I was looking at until it was too late. I left it alone for a year before trying again. The second attempt, with proper attention to sowing directly into poor soil as rich soil en…

I started with one Foxglove and now have four, all from propagation. The process is straightforward once you understand scarifying or scratching the soil before sowing for seed contact — something I picked up from trial and error rather than any guide. I display them in a wildlife pond margin plant…