Foxglove varieties that keep on giving

With lofty spires of pink or white bell flowers, our native foxglove Digitalis purpurea and its white-flowered counterpart are the lifesaver of many gardens, flowering with elegant gusto in early summer onwards, creating vertical drama that far exceeds the size of plant.

Being biennial, it produces a rosette of leaves in the first year, a flower spike the next, setting pods of tiny seeds, which then germinate, repeating the cycle. So, to maintain continuity of blossom you need plants of different ages.

There are a range of hybrids that are far more perennial, each plant lasting a number of years instead of just two, making it easier to plan arrangements more reliably. They also have different coloured flowers in shades of yellow, bronze and copper, as well as pink. If you like yellow or copper-orange shades use ‘Goldcrest’ or

‘Spice Island’, if you want pink, try D. mertonensis

‘Summer King’, like a stubby D. purpurea, one of its parents, or multistemmed ‘Arctic Fox Rose’. Both ‘Goldcrest’ and ‘Spice Island’ are sterile, setting no seed, so need to be replaced periodically. All bloom from early to mid-summer, but if you remove spent flower spikes from fertile varieties, such as ‘Summer King’ and Arctic Fox Rose’, it will encourage them to produce more, prolonging the display.

Like native foxgloves, these varieties can be grown in sun or semi-shade, preferring a moist, but well-drained soil that doesn’t become droughted if they are to bloom to their full potential. Avoid soils that are too rich or adding fertilisers high in nitrogen that encourages too much growth so they become weak and flop in strong wind. Planting young rosettes now will enable them to establish over winter and get them off to a flying start next year.