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Lanarkshire, United Kingdom

Hi folks, I bought a couple of foxgloves from cosco the other day, they were very big and I thought I could split them to get 3 plants (they had what appeared to be 3 clumps each) Ive put them into large containers for the first year. They are now very limp and I'm not sure if I've damaged them beyond repair. Will they revive themselves after the shock? Any advice is welcome




Answers

 

Should do, keep them well watered and in a bit of shade for a while.
Remember that once they have flowered next year they will set seed and die, they are biennials.

15 Jul, 2010

 

Hi Wongchong,

It is possible to successfully divide Digitalis, and there are a few varieties that can only be reproduced by this method. Each division needs a large rootstock in order to establish well, and you need to keep the very well watered too. I would remove some (though not all) of the foliage from your divisions to lessen the water-loss and if possibly enclose them in a polythene bag (as you would with a cutting) to maintain humidity. It is possibly that you had 3 seedlings growing closely together in one pot, since young Digitalis tend not to "clump-up" until after they have flowered, assuming they survive flowering as our native D. purpurea (in all it's various forms) is only a short-lived biennial.

15 Jul, 2010

 

sorry about all the typos in that last reply!! :-)

15 Jul, 2010

 

There are also perennial digitalis, often with yellow or reddish-yellow flowers, such as digitalis lutea and digitalis ferruginea. I find the common foxgloves always do far better from seed and when they have self-sown, but the other types make really good border plants and are far less trouble.
You can grow them from seed with a little patience and potting on.

15 Jul, 2010

 

i already had great flowers on these plants, does that mean I will have no flowers next year

Sorry if this seems a silly question, but I'm very new to this and don't know much about it all.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

18 Jul, 2010

 

If you can successfully split and grow on the small offsets, then these will be like new plants which will flower next year. The main plant will die after flowering as it's biennial.

19 Jul, 2010

How do I say thanks?

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