Digitalis purpurea

Sly Foxgloves

| Flower Roberts

Digitalis purpurea is one species of plant that is unpredictable. It changes location and form. Just when you think it is in the right place in a border, it moves or changes height or color. Then you have tall plants in the front and short plants in back.

Where you planted a soothing white ends up hot pink with spots. I will not complain simply because I love them any where they show up no matter the height and color.

I did count on a white version called Dalmation to brighten a shady spot, but pink has been just as nice.

The blooms are magical to me. The ones with the pointed bottom lips remind me of elf hats and the ruffled blooms look like fairy bonnets.

It is one plant I intend to have in my garden forever. Shifty and sly as they are, they are still one of my favorite flowers.

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Foxglove Love

| Flower Roberts

If you like surprises, you may want to add some foxglove to your gardens.

Foxglove/ Digitalis purpurea

Not only do they self-seed to change location and change color, they also change shape.

If you have added numerous varieties to your garden the surprises will occur every spring.

As the lovely plants bloom and set seed, their DNA mixes to produces new combinations.

Every spring is a color crap shoot. This spring I have some new shapes.

I also have a new white with spots that are almost invisible.

This is one of the many reasons I love foxglove, besides those spots.

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I Love Foxgloves

| Flower Roberts

I could not let May end without mentioning my foxgloves.

I consider them fascinating.

Each thimble is designed to guide a bee into it.

The spots inside are like little landing lights.

The tall spikes of blooms and fluffy leaves below create perfect balance.

I have planted them many places from which they disappear, only to reappear somewhere else.

Digitalis purpurea

Seeds sown in the fall will sprout in spring and bloom a year later.

They are self-sowing biennials. Enjoy them wherever they choose to grow.

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Seeing Spots!

| Flower Roberts

This is the most magical plant in my garden.

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Its nickname is Fairy Flower.

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Most call it foxglove. The scientific name is Digitalis purpurea.

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One year I actually hid tiny fairies in the flowers for a post.

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Most of my foxgloves are pink this season.

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But no two are identical.

The tubular flowers have hairs inside along the bottom.

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The stamen with pollen and stigma are under the roof.

Bees go in and get their tummies tickled by the hairs

as pollen is deposited onto or removed from their backs.

It’s the spots that get me.

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The Most Magical Plant of All

| Flower Roberts

If there were an official plant of the fairies, I bet it would be the foxglove.

They are magical plants.  They sow their own seeds. They change colors.

Even their flower shapes morph from year to year.

They seem to know where they belong and what form is needed.

Or is it the fairies that do it?

Every year I anticipate some surprises from my Digitalis purpurea.

This year there were several.    Some pinks got pinker.

Some whites turned half pink.

Some flower tubes got longer and narrower.

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Some seeds sneaked into the bunny yard to germinate and had to be moved.  They are poisonous.

Foxgloves are so charming, they must be magic.

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