Photo of foxglove in bloom
Strawberry Foxglove

Foxglove, a garden beauty to beware

If you know someone who takes digoxin for a heart condition, you know someone who needs the foxglove plant. Digoxin is derived from the leaves and seeds of Digitalis lanata. It's curative powers for certain heart conditions has been known since 1785 when Dr. William Withering published an account of the foxglove's curative qualities.

If humans or animals eat this ornamental garden plant, they will get very ill and may die. All parts of the plant are poisonous. Most human poisoning is due to prescription overdose or misuse. In the garden, young children are the most likely to be poisoned, attracted by the beautiful flowers.

As the gardener, it is your choice what grows in your garden, but if have young children or pets that tend to chew on garden plants I don't recommend growing foxgloves. If there is an accidental poisoning, immediately call the Poison Control Center at 1-800-222-1222.

Garden plants grown domestically as long as the foxglove usually have purposes other than their attractivenees as plants. Historically foxgloves have been used in teas to cure coughs and other pulmonary complaints. Some sources claim Vincent Van Gogh used digitalis to treat his epilepsy. Weavers used foxgloves to produce a yellow-green dye. Foxgloves also attract honeybees for honey production.

Poisoning disclaimers aside, Strawberry Foxglove or Merton's Foxglove (Digitalis x mertonensis) makes a beautiful addition to the early summer garden. The three-foot flower spike rises from a rosette of large velvety leaves. The buds are arranged in spirals up the stalk, blooming from the bottom to the top in rose-colored blossoms. The flowers have been compared to thimbles and gloves in the plant's alternative names like fairy thimbles, fairy's gloves, fairy caps, and witches gloves. The flowers also gave the plant its Latin name, digitalis, meaning finger-like. Actually they appear more bell-like as in the common name, dead men's bells. Strawberry Foxglove is a true perennial plant, lasting many years. Most foxgloves are biannual, growing foliage the first year from seed, blooming and shedding seed the second year, then dying. The Strawberry Foxglove is a hybrid developed in 1925 in Merton, England. More importantly the Strawberry Foxglove is a tetraploid, having twice the number of chromosomes as its parent plants. The double chromosomes give the plant more substance, with larger leaves and flowers than most foxgloves.

Plants need dividing every two years to remain healthy. These plant divisions will increase the number of foxgloves quickly. Unlike many hybrids, Strawberry Foxglove also comes true from seed.

For those of us challenged by harsh winters, foxgloves are hardy in zone 4, likes moist soil in full sun. In partial shade they can withstand dryer soil, but in very wet or very dry soil they die. They grow best in good garden loam, but are not fussy about their soil pH. After blooming cut the flower stalk off to encourage blooming next year. If you grow one of the biennial species of foxglove, the plant can be removed and added to the compost pile. Foxglove's poisonous nature does not deter slugs and Japanese beetles from attacking plants.