If any herbaceous plant is non-stereotypical, it must be the foxglove. It defies classification of which there seems to be three. It reproduces abundantly in just the right places, then blooms with stellar showmanship and exits with ethereal aplomb. Call them biennial, short-lived perennial, true perennial or even sterile, these showstoppers are a must for East Coast gardens.

Ken Selody, owner of Atlock Flower Farm, Somerset, New Jersey, grows ‘Foxy’ and a mix of D. purpurea. He sells rosettes that he starts from seed in January or February. “Occasionally I’ll get a garden full of rosettes. You can’t do too much disturbance of the soil. They grow where there’s no mulch or leaf litter. They will germinate and grow where they want to. They tend to put themselves in really good spots. If you go in and thin them be careful not to do it in an artificial way – no straight rows. They seem to know how to come up where they need to come up.”

At Bill Kolvek Perennials in Spring Valley, New York, owner Bill Kolvek grows the most famous foxglove “biennial” D. purpurea “Excelsior” mix and named cultivars like white Alba, Spice Island and the shorter “Foxy” hybrids. He also grows the short-lived perennial D. mertensia (D. ambugua) and yellow D. grandiflora a “true perennial” and the hardiest of them all.

Laurelwood’s Scott-Miller recommends that gardeners buy and grow plants for three years. “If you want foxglove, you have to keep planting them for a while. You have to think big when growing foxglove. Plant them in swaths and not in full sun – they’ll go in full sun if they want to. Start with twelve and the next year put another twelve in. Eventually you get seedlings. Foxglove will grow where it wants to. The seeds will go everywhere but it chooses its own place. Humus in soil and good drainage are essential.”

Most importantly, she says, “Lay in the foxgloves for three or four years if you want to have an effect.”

General Care
Thought for the day: Digitalis is more like a tender perennial and not even that – an ethereal perennial, mysterious perennial. “Ditto for hollyhocks in my experience” says Pierson. They all self-sow except for Polka Dot Pippa. Plant in sun to partial shade. They like fairly constant moisture with good drainage and will rot in winter in heavy soils.

Deadheading
Some say that deadheading may encourage re-blooming but be sure to leave some flower spikes. Says Pierson: “Leave the seed on the plant and make sure there’s open soil for the seed to be distributed. If there’s nowhere for seed to drop and germinate, it won’t. In spring, make sure you don’t weed out the seedlings. The mother plant may come back too.”

Transplanting Rosettes
If one day in late summer you discover a patch of tiny seedlings, that is the time to transplant and separate them, if you wish, before they grow and their roots become entwined. Be warned: the tiny rosettes grow fast. If you don’t have the chance to move them immediately when they are small and at a distance from each other, let them be until spring. Winter will determine which survive.
Scott-Miller: “Let them overwinter and see what comes up.”

If you want foxglove where it isn’t growing, perhaps it’s best to buy plants and let them go to seed.

Fertilizer
Bill Kolvek doesn’t fertilize his foxgloves or perennials in general. Instead, he amends the soil with compost, leaf mold, and organic fertilizer like Plant-tone. If the soil needs extra nutrients, they might add bonemeal, greensand and kelp meal. As with over-fertilized grasses that grow lanky, Kolvek finds that perennials like it on the lean side too. “Give it a good, basic start and let it grow. That way you’ll get tough growth. That’s exactly what’s happening in the woods. No one’s taking care of the woods.”