Friday 23 May 2014

The Poison Flower...

Last year we brought from our garden in England a Foxglove (Digitalis Purperea)... It is now in full bloom.


The flower is Poisonous and can be used as a medicine, rather than re-type the detail you can read all the facts here. I only ever remember them as wild flowers and we used to see many on our walks in the Forest of Bowland.

Foxgloves seem to be very popular as garden plants this year and have figured prominently in the gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show.Interestingly we have noticed them in some French garden centres too and yesterday we called in a branch of Gamm Vert... We could not resist buying another one...

... which has been planted next to the existing one...

The Foxglove is biennial and will only flower in the second year. Hopefully we will be collecting seeds in an attempt to keep the lines going, but we will have to wait two years to get the flowers again. If the conditions arn't favorable the seeds will lie dormant. There is a good article on how to grow foxgloves by Carol Klein here

We will just have to wait and see...

Note.
Our local Château du Rivau is listed by the Daily Telegraph as one of the top ten gardens of the Loire... See Here

2 comments:

Tim said...

There are rather beautiful perennial foxgloves as well...

Digitalis grandiflora "Carrilon"...
a dwarf variety with rich yellow flowers.

Digitalis lanata "Café Créme"...
its flowers are rich cream darkening to yellow in the throat.The markings are a bronzy colour...
it is wonderful.

Digitalis ferruginea "Yellow Herold"...
grows to 2mtrs and the mustard yellow flowers are furry...
so there are some more to look out for....

Susan said...

My foxgloves are flowering now too. I love them and once you have them, you have them forever. They produce the most enormous quantity of seed and self-seed prolifically. I was told when we moved here that until recently they were illegal to grow in gardens in France, like opium poppies were too. I have both and one of my neighbours delights in telling me both species are poisonous. One of my very elderly neighbours claims never to have seen a foxglove until the ones in my garden. She thought they were gorgeous so I gave her some seeds.