Foxgloves seed themselves about in an apparently indiscriminately random melee and thus bring a fresh sense of serendipity to the garden each year. Their propensity for joyful exuberance and sheer extravagance of bloom are the essence of the cottage garden spirit. Foxgloves are so wonderful every garden should have a few, even those would-be stuffy formal gardens!
For some gardeners the quintessential foxglove is the species, Digitalis purpurea, with its purplish pink flowers. My favorites are the mixed pink and white "Excelsiors" for a traditional look combined with sturdy and dependable garden performance.
I like to be able to look UP into the flowers. Flowers taller than I am transform the garden into a tangible glimpse of those happy feelings of childhood back when the garden was always an endlessly magical place full of wonder with new discoveries at every turn. And besides, the fairies sleep there inside the tallest foxgloves and I like to think of them tucked safely out of harm's way as I tiptoe softly by.
If you haven't room for the bigger foxgloves, another good choice is that little imp of a plant called "Foxy". This variety is supposed to bloom the first year from seed if started early enough, and it might well do that with a bit of coddling, although it doesn't do it consistently at my house. This is supposed to be a mix, but in my garden the color is a definite, unvarying and uncompromising pink, so for me there is no chance of a happy accident in terms of color. This dilutes the magical effect a bit, as does their stubby shorter height, but they are still foxgloves and definitely worth having especially if that is the only way you can make them fit into your garden!
When you read the plant catalogs and sales placards at the garden center, beware the "perennial" foxglove, a tetraploid hybrid called Digitalis mertonensis. The literature often claims it is perennial or at least one of the longer lived of foxgloves. Frankly, I have my doubts.
Most foxgloves are biennials, meaning they seed down after blooming with the resulting seedlings becoming the next generation of blooming sized plants the following year. So the seeds are dropped in mid summer, germinate, grow into a nice basal rosette of foliage by fall, winter over and then finally bloom their fool heads off the following season. After blooming, these too will set seed unless "deadheaded" by an ambitious and energetic gardener. Occasionally a few plants will decide to repeat their performance, thus becoming "perennial" by virtue of wintering over twice.
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