Native substitute for Foxglove ( Digitalis purpurea )

lycopus

10 years ago

Liatris spp. can be as showy and are perennial so you won't need to worry about them reseeding.

If you use Lupinus perennis it should come back every year without reseeding. It mostly likes sandy soil though.

sherriseden

10 years ago

Penstemon grandiflorus looks a lot like foxglove and is a true perennial (foxglove tends toward biennial), but needs mostly sun - will that works?

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the toxicity of foxglove

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For those who think there is no issue and no more education needs done I would disagree. I didn't know anything about the toxicity of foxgloves and my 7 year old son has got into wildflowers during the lockdowns. As children tend to do he was admiring the beauty of a foxglove in a forest this week and also as children are very prone to do he put his finger into one of the belllike - fingerlike flowers just for the fun of it. His finger got the pollen on him but as I had never heard of any danger with foxgloves (they are everywhere in ireland) i didn't think anything of it. I said he should wipe the pollen off on some grass but I didn't really think there would be any problem. About half an hour later he had a packet of raisins further into the forest. (We even used hand sanitiser first) A few hours later he started feeling very unwell and no appetite for any dinner and eventually threw up multiple times everywhere. Because of covid restrictions we haven't been going anywhere, and he has had no contact with people as school is out. So I know it wasn't a bug. I think it really would help parents to know about the dangers as think how easily a young child could do the same thing and enjoy putting their fingers into the flowers, without knowing the pollen is dangerous. We don't need ot be afraid of everything but when even the pollen is dangerous in foxgloves a little wider awareness would really help.

Winter Sowing in the MIDDLE zones: 5, 6, and 7 (native seed list)

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columbine: nora barlow, New York iron weed, foxglove, cockscomb

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Most (though not all) kinds foxglove (Digitalis) are biennial, so they grow a rosette of leaves in year one, flowers in year two, and usually die after that, though once in a blue moon they will come back for a second year of blooming in my garden. Leave some of the later bloom stalks to go to seed if you want it to continue, but deadhead early bloom stalks to get additional booms as the summer progresses. Mine seems to like it best in part shade and relatively even moisture as that's where it seeds most. It blooms most of the summer and sometimes into the fall for me. Occasionally its medium-large leaves will overwhelm a more delicate plant, so I remove seedlings where this might happen. The most common ones (Digitalis purpurea) are various shades of white, pink and pinkish purple. All foxglove plants contain a compound that effects heart rhythms if eaten, so be sure to wash your hands after handling. As Gardenweed said, Columbine (Aquilegia) self-seeds readily here in New England, but it plays well with others and is easy to remove, so it isn't a pest. It seems happiest when direct seeded, but I have transplanted it successfully. It is a spring to midsummer bloomer here. The original Nora Barlow is a double deep pink with some paler/greenish areas on the petals, a quite different form than traditional columbines, but IME the plant behaves the same way as more traditional columbines. There are now other columbines with similar form but other colors. IME most columbines are relatively short-lived perennials (a few years, but not more than 5 or 6) so save some seed just in case. IME, New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) is a great plant for the wilder edges of the garden. It is a perennial native wildflower, tall and with a purple flower that happens here for just a few weeks in late August into September. There is often some purple shading to the stems. NY ironweed likes wet feet, at least here in New England since that's where the wild populations are, though it will probably grow just fine in average soil once established. My only ironweed/Vernonia, a different species than your seeds, was eaten by voles within weeks of its planting, so if you have voles, you might want to protect the plant with some hardware cloth. If you don't want seedlings, deadhead. Cockscomb (Celosia) is usually planted as an annual, though I think there are some varieties which are perennial in the warmest zones. Depending on the type, the plants' height may vary quite a bit so perhaps either the seed packets or your daughter can give you more information about the plants' height. The flower form may vary some as well, but they are usually bright shades of red, orange and gold. My garden is well-drained, acid, fine sandy loam with fairly good organic matter and my weather is quite different from yours, so YMMV.

Are any of these Foxglove?

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Thanks for the advice! I'm actually from Canada, as you guessed from the bilingual seed packet :P I don't know if my plant would survive outside just yet, honestly. I live in Alberta, and this year I've had lots of very aggressive rain, that killed my neighbors petunias.. Not to mention winters here get really cold (-25celsius). I googled my plant hardiness zone, and it said my city is 3b. I know foxglove grows to be really big, so maybe next spring it would have a better chance at surviving when it's bigger? Maybe I'm just worring too much? It's such a small delicate thing haha Since the climate where I live can be rather unfriendly to plants, do you think my foxglove would do alright indoors, in a huge pot? I have friend who has a potted tree growing inside their house successfully (hibiscus I think). I have the space, if the plant would survive indoors, and canadian tire sells pots that a small person could fit in comfortably lol

Great blue lobelia (lobelia siphilitica) has tall blue flower stalks in summer, returns reliably for me, and reseeds if you let it. Good for part sun/dappled shade, likes a well-drained but moist soil, excellent combination with chartreuse - outstanding combination when it blooms alongside my limelight hydrangea. Or try cardinal flower (lobelia cardinalis) for red flowers, but the flower stalks are a bit shorter.