8 Ft+ Foxglove

I sowed and planted some Foxgloves last year, the have duly come back this year and flowered, at least two are 8.5ft tall with flower spikes 5.5ft long at least. Has anyone come across this before?

The photo below is quite deceptive, its 7ft to the top of the pergola but due to the angle where I took the photo the flower spike tips look lower than they are, but are actually over a foot taller than the pergola.



Steve...

 

Hi Steve, a few years ago I had a couple of white foxgloves that reached somewhere around 7-8ft tall; they were in moist fertile soil next to a pond, so I don't know whether that had anything to do with it?

The rosette of leaves prior to flowering was also substantial :thumb:

 

Lovely plants! I've had more white ones than usual this year. Usually I don't have any. And I haven't sown any white ones. Anyone else experienced this?

 

Brilliant Steve. I suspect that many plants are capable of growing much larger than we think if they get exactly the right conditions. I notice that each year its often different plants that do really well. But its difficult to know exactly what those conditions are and even more difficult to reproduce them.

 

I had such plants in 2008, Steve. The obelisk is a standard B&Q one, about 5 foot tall.



But here's a mystery: these plants came from a packet of seeds. In 2009/10, the self seeded plants only got to about 5 feet and this year they are midgets - only about 3 foot tall! I reckon by this reasoning, the 2012 plants will be about 6" tall!

Can anyone explain that?

 

Hi All,
Have looked through threads on foxgloves to gain some info as I have some in my garden (thanks to members for help in ID ) They were beautiful this year however. The back is a mess and want to sort it out but would like to keep the foxgloves but

A. I don't know the first thing about moving them apart from diggin em up obviously :o
B. I have seed heads and would like to know how to go about removing them and using them next year in a different part.

Please can anyone ?

 

Do what the parent foxglove does and just scatter them on the ground!
I have had repeat f/gloves for about 6 years now and only ever sowed the first year. They seem to do extremely well in random scatterings - no need to fuss over them much at all.

 

What you feeding them on Steve..!

 

Very impressive Stev and Daisees ! I never seem to see Foxgloves in the wild when I am out walking. I remember them as being very common on wasteland when I was a kid , am I looking in the right places ?

 

I've got quite a lot of foxgloves in my garden this year, which is very interesting because I didn't plant them. Same with verbascums - lots of them, unsown by me. I can only think that birds have brought the seeds in from elsewhere (along with not so welcome things like willowherb and triffid-like evening primroses).
I remember seeing masses of foxgloves growing wild in Cornwall, Harry, usually in shady, woody places like old quarries.

 

Thanks Daises,
Thing is I'm not at the stage yet of being able to spread the seed as ma man is going to overhaul the garden later on in the year/next. I would like to know if I could keep the seed to scatter later and what is best to keep it in?

 

I have a yellow verbascum which has grown unbellievably tall!! I bought it in the sale at the local GC at the end of last season so planted it knowing that it would be quite tall but of course it now looks out of place in the spot it is in. Will have to move it after it has flowered and died back. Can anybody tell me if I can divide by cutting it in half when I have lifted it?

Sally

 

Now measuring 9ft, and just finishing flowering. This is the best angle I can get to take a photo from.

I'm fairly pleased with them though...



Steve...

 

My foxgloves are smaller than usual due to the extremely dry weather we've had in east Suffolk this year. It's great to see how they should look.....