Foxgloves Out Of The Blue

[Prudie]

I'm very thrilled to have 3 wild foxgloves come up in my garden this year - all next to each other in a North facing bed. My question is how did they get there? I've never grown them and the nearest wild ones I know of are at least 300 yards away. One seed maybe dropped by a bird but 3?

[Old_Geezer]

Probably some fox looking to get a new Spring wardrobe.

[Peter Pedant]

OG go and have some sweet coffee !

bird poo I think - I have cowslips in Manchester and the nearest I know are Dorset... fox gloves .... weed I know because I can grow them.

WIlliam WIthering the fella who did fox glove tea for dropsy ( see SIlas Marner, Geo Eliot ) - his house is now park grove school brum which abuts Harborne Parish church and so it you go to the church and lean over to the school property for the fox gloves that grow there ...you may be growing the VERY plants he used to treat his patients !

[Prudie]

Poo could be it - yes they contain digitalis, poisonous in over use but good heart drug. I could show you rafts of cowslips here in Dorset if you came at the right time, they particularly favour fast road embankments!

[Chipchopper]

I think the tiny seeds have the potential to be carried, maybe for miles by the wind.
What maybe a greater challenge though, is the seed finding its self in the right conditions to germinate, soil that gets disturbed occasionally might increase its chances.

[Prudie]

yes chichopper the location also surprises me , it's against a 6 foot fence and never gets sun at any time of the year, the wild ones grow in sunny spots round me.

[Chipchopper]

I love foxgloves Prudie,
I think they were one of the first flowers to impress me as a kid.

What I like to do is scatter the seeds around the garden, once the flower spikes have gone to seed, I do the same thing with verbascum and red campion, if only one in a thousand germinates, I still get lots of them.

[julia-mag]

I too have lots of foxgloves this year, but I do encourage them although they are biennials. Mine were growing beautifully in January and then all of a sudden they all went as if they were dying, but have now recovered and so far I can count over 20 spikes of flowers just bursting into flower, sign for the bees to arrive! Last year the noise of the bees in the flowers was something I loved to listen to, it was amazing.