My father has spent a lot of time in England, and he loves the foxgloves that bloom in profusion there... fields of pink-purple and sometimes white, bell-shaped flowers, as tall as me sometimes. So last year, I decided I'd try to grow some foxgloves in honor of my dad. I got seeds, I planted them, nurtured them... they grew into lovely rosettes and then just stalled out. I figured I had failed at foxgloves. They didn't like the soil or the climate or something about my yard.
It turns out foxgloves have a 2-year life-cycle. This spring, my foxgloves have, with absolutely no input from me at all, grown up and flowered. I now have a small patch of them in my yard. Quite lovely. I'll have to find out if they'll survive as cut flowers for my dad.
In the world of native plants, the US native equivalent (if you will) -- foxglove beardtongue -- has started blooming:
Is beardtongue also poisonous/medicinal?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe so. I think they got their name because of the irregular flower shape, but actually aren't related to foxgloves.
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