Digitalis - collecting and sowing seed

I really want to have a crack at going my own digitalis next year. The two I've got a the moment have about finished flower wise ... how long after flowering can you collect the seeds, any tips on collecting the seeds (e.g. do you wait for the pods to open, collect the pods when they are sealed and green ?) and any tips for sowing next year ?

Thanks !

 

Oh, also, if I leave some of the pods alone, are they likely to self seed ?

 

Hi Len,You can collect the seed from off of the plant when the seed pods turn brown and either just before they split open or when they start to split open because if you leave it too late the seed pods will open fully and the seeds will be shed.Make sure you wear some sort of gloves on your hands,either garden ones or I use the latex ones as the plants and seed pods can cause health problems so you don't want to touch any part of them with bare hands.

You can sprinkle the seeds round the garden at this time of the year and you should get the seed germinating and growing into plants before the winter sets in or you can keep them in a paper bag somewhere dry for sowing in the spring months,although by doing that they might not flower next year whereas if you sow them now they should with luck start to flower next year.

I never grow mine indoors prefering to either let them self seed or by sprinkling the seed round the garden where i want them to grow.Once they have finished flowering the main mother plant will die hence the reason for getting some of the seeds growing.

Here is a link that you might like to read..
How To Grow Foxgloves

 

Hi

I have pots with daylily's in and the tops of the pots are covered in grit , the amout of fox glove seedlings you would be shocked (hundreds of tiny plants) and on the gravel path covered the same and this was off just 3 plants .


Spruce

 

Cool thanks both. Good tip Kandy about gloves ... didnt know that ! :-)

Cheers

 

Kandy is dead right about that, I ate 2mm of the leaf tip & it played havoc with my heart all night. Its very powerfull:OUCH:

 

I have handled the seeds and plants fairly often during the normal course of collecting, sowing, deadheading, weeding etc and have never noticed any health problems. Is it possible to absorb significant amounts of digitalin through the skin? (Of course, nobody would be silly enough to eat it...would they?)

Personally, I wouldn't dream of bothering with gloves unless I was planning to spend a day chopping down a foxglove plantation. We have all had them in our our countryside and gardens for centuries and mishaps
related to normal use seem virtually unheard of.

I have had an unusual number of white foxgloves this year so I have dead-headed the rest and sprinkled the white seed in the hope of continuing them. If you are going to collect them you will need to be ready with white paper or bags as the seed is very fine and spills easily.

 

Madahhlia,I expect that the info about the Digitalis {Foxglove}might apply to someone with heart problems,but as the info about them is so strong I don't fancy taking the chance and handling them without some form of protection,and as I do most of my gardening and pricking out/potting on wearing gloves etc,I will never know whether it is old wives tales or whether there could be something in it:D

Here is another link i have found...
Medicines From Plants - Digitalis and Taxol

By the way,I do believe that white Foxgloves seeds are sterile so if you so any of them you might not get any viable plants but you can get white plants produced from the normal common pink forms

 

I wondered if they might be sterile - they didn't produce as many seeds as the robust purple variety. I'm wondering what genetic process resulted in so many white ones this year as I'm sure the pink form is dominant.

I had a rummage on the web and discovered this hysterical (in a number of senses) website. Lovers of Bad Science will adore it. Credulous and suggestible people, look away now.

Foxgloves, Foxglove Flower Alert, Deadly Plants, Poisonous Plants

I have emailed the lady adding my voice to the sensible Mr Krummel's.