Foxglove

What’s happening on Mist Mountain ?  A Walk-Around in April, a very unpredictable month.

I have always love the fields of foxglove where they appear in their many shades of white, pink, and purples.  When I discovered they provided digitalis for heart problems,  I grew to respect them.  A few years back I read that bees are attracted by blue and purple flowers about the same time the hill broke out in foxglove glory.

Since our weather is so strange and unpredictable here (the weathermen like to call it one of those “pockets” so it doesn’t make their predictions look bad), I try to incorporate the wild flowers in my landscape because they have already proven they will survive.

The wildflower seed packets usually have foxglove seeds in them, but I had no luck, so I decided to try to transplant a small one from down the road.  It worked.  Not only did it grow beautifully and attract bees to my garden right away, I have found that they are so prolific after a few years that there are more new plants than I can find a space for.

They die back almost to nothing, and now they are starting to leaf out and will eventually stand as high as I am.

They look a little worse for wear at this time of year but they will grow to about four or five feet and look like this: