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Foxgloves....What do I do n
mcarr1810
Posts: 6
As I've said before, I'm a complete novice with the garden.
My Foxgloves and a plant that is very similar which I cannot remember the name of, seem to have died off for the season.
What do I do now?? Do I trim them down? Will they come back up again next year??
0
Posts
Looks like a Delphinium next to your foxglove there :-)
What I do, is leave them to set seed, then collect a few to sow in pots for next year. You can give the flower spike a shake if you want to make sure it has babies in the same spot.
Then it’s up to you whether you chop it down near the ground now, or leave it until spring time for a tidy up? Personally I’d leave it to add some height to the border and provide some food to wildlife through the winter.
You might be lucky and get some decent flowers next year, so long as you don’t disturb the roots or chop the leaves off while they are still green and healthy.
Good luck!
Foxgloves are basically biennial, they do sometimes go on for another year but not so good in my experience. The other thing they do is make new leaves so you think they'll go another year, then die. I let them seed and pull them up.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I agree with Nut regarding the foxgloves, but the delphinium should be perennial ... it'll die down over the winter and grow again in the spring, providing the slugs don't eat the new young shoots. As soon as they appear in the spring I surround the plant with some sharp sand to try to keep the slugs and snails away.
For now, I'd cut the delphinium spike down to about 12" so that it concentrates on building up a strong plant rather than spend its energy on producing seeds.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thank you for the advice