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Old 06-06-2005, 01:57 PM
Nell
 
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Default Foxgloves: prolific self-seeders?

On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?

As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.

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Old 06-06-2005, 02:11 PM
Jill Tardivel
 
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Foxgloves are selfseeding in my garden in South East Kent, I encourage
them, and they haven't been a problem so far. I've been in this house
for 15 years. My garden is pretty informal and the foxgloves grow in a
couple of beds at the back of the back garden and in some side beds at
the front garden. I think I usually have around 20 to 25 flower spikes
most years.

I move perhaps a dozen self seeded plants that grow in inappropriate
places each year. I find about half of these growing as seedlings in
potted plants on the patio. They seem to survive the move though I
don't give the seedlings much care.

About eight years ago I had a bumper year with over 50 spikes and they
looked magnificent. Don't know what caused it. Hasn't happened since.
Maybe something like this happened to the previous owner.

Jill Tardivel

Nell wrote:
On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?

As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.

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Old 06-06-2005, 02:46 PM
Mike Lyle
 
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Nell wrote:
On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the
moment, all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and
charming. They popped up in various places in the early spring

along
with the weeds and I plucked many out recognising them immediately,
but I left those that had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I

don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered
with them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid
of them. How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?

As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and

there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true

that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.


The verges get cut every year, and if it's done before most of the
foxgloves set seed, they won't be able to spread. I don't see the
previous owner's problem: they look good, and are easily controlled
by cutting, as they're biennials. I've never found them to be
particularly good competitors with other plants, despite their big
leaves; but I suppose that depends on local conditions.

--
Mike.


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Old 06-06-2005, 02:59 PM
Stephen Howard
 
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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:57:30 +0100, Nell
wrote:

On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?

As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.


Well, I've tried many times to fill my garden with them. I think the
best I ever did was have five plants in flower at once - and I was
aiming for a stand of about 20+ plants in a rear border.
This year I'm back down to one, and that's one I bought in and planted
myself.

What's frustrating is that when they do grow, they grow very well and
put on a magnificent display...and you'd think that would be a good
indicator that they're happy and in the right spot, and therefore
ought to set seed quite readily nearby.
I have the same problem with lupins.

Clearly there's something that prevents them from exploding all over
the garden - whether it be ground conditions or attack from
slugs/rabbits/deer/elephants etc...

It would seem sensible to take advice from the previous owner of your
garden, if he's had problems with them then it's more than likely that
your garden suits foxgloves.
Having said that though, they're not difficult to spot and eradicate
if you so wish.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk
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Old 06-06-2005, 03:02 PM
Victoria Clare
 
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Nell wrote in :

On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?


Not true at all in my garden, where I have allowed them to self-seed for
the last 5 years. I get the odd one in the patio cracks, and it can be a
little difficult to dislodge them from there if you don't catch them early,
but dandelions are much worse.

Possibly the previous owner just didn't like them, or is one of those
people who consider all self-seeding or native plants to be noxious weeds?

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--


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Old 06-06-2005, 03:03 PM
Martin Brown
 
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Nell wrote:

On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.


I prefer to have a mixture of colours from white to purple. YMMV

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?


They are not a real problem in a big garden provided you only let them
grow where you want them (and remember to cut the seed heads off before
they ripen). I expect if you left all the seed heads on it could rapidly
get out of control since each plant produces a few thousand sseds...

As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.


There are other things that compete even more aggressively in the
hedgerows. On cultivated ground it is different. I have never found
foxgloves much of an issue they are so easy to hoe out when small.

Regards,
Martin Brown
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Old 06-06-2005, 03:30 PM
BAC
 
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"Nell" wrote in message
...
On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?


They would only be a nuisance if there were likely to be more of them than
you could easily control.

Personally, I like foxgloves, and the fact they self seed year after year is
a bonus. They are really easy to remove, when they are small, if they are
growing in a location I would rather they didn't.


As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.


It's the Himalayan Balsam that keeps them down :-)


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Old 06-06-2005, 06:28 PM
Kay
 
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In article , Nell
writes
On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?

As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.

As far as I can see, their preferred habitat is newly cleared woodland.
In other words, they like not-total shade, and fairly clear ground. They
don't compete well with other plants, and that is why the verges aren't
full of them.

In a garden, they may have clear ground and partial shade, and so it is
possible to get a bloom of them - we had one glorious year when we were
setting up our front garden and had about a hundred of them - a
wonderful sight. Now we have settled to an equilibrium - I deadhead the
purple ones, keep the white and other coloured ones, pull up the
seedlings where I don't want them, and in this way always have about a
dozen scattered around in various colours.

So, from your point of view, enjoy them, take off the main spike before
the seeds are ripe, similarly all the side spikes when they follow on,
and learn to identify the seedlings, and you should have no problem.
They are certainly well down in the nuisance stakes, even at their most
prolific.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

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Old 07-06-2005, 12:33 AM
Nell
 
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I'm in west mid-Wales, very acid soil, damp - although this last winter
and spring there has not been a lot of really heavy rain unfortunately.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your thoughts. Yes, indeed, I think I will
enjoy these beautiful flowers. As you all say, they are so easy to
remove. However, I am grateful for the advice that I remove the spike
once the seeds begin to form. Enough seeds should find there way into
the garden next year from outside, as clearly happened here for the
current display to have developed.

Nell.

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Old 07-06-2005, 12:47 AM
Mike Lyle
 
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jane wrote:
[...]
Now, mulleins are another matter... they are just thugs!


OK, I know about mulleins, if nothing else, and I love them. Let them
spread out their basal rosettes, and they'll smother almost anything.
But they can't keep it up from season to season. Study a patch in the
wild, and you'll see they go like hell one year and then quietly
vanish over the next three. You won't actually find a good patch in
the wild very often, though -- not in the same place, anyhow. This is
because they are biennials which happen to be good at disturbed
ground (they come up like Flanders poppies when there's no
competition), but in spite of having great big leaves they don't work
well with other plants -- I think they make their growth a bit too
late compared with other plants. This is why Great Britain hasn't
been taken over by them and foxgloves, which are similar, though I
haven't watched those with such a beady eye.

The other thing I've found from experiment is that they -- like many
other plants -- will germinate at once from green seeds which most
gardeners would consider unripe. They don't need a winter's cold if
you get them into favourable conditions before the seeds dry out and
go into dormancy. The canny and devoted gardener could, if a showman
or something, profit from this tendency, but in the wild it's a
terrible gamble. Plants which produce enormous numbers of tiny seeds
don't, of course, produce the same number of offspring (I think the
Eagle "comic" when I were a lad announced that the offspring of a
single hen cod would, if they grew to maturity, cause a traffic jam
in the English Channel); I think they behave in way which resembles
hedging one's bets, but won't in an ecosystem result in any one
overall winner. The seedlings come up like buggery, but haven't got
Kelly Smith's oomph in the tackle, never mind Karen Carney's
eye-popping evasiveness.

The other factor which prevents the global domination of verbascums
(verbasca ?) is the mullein moth. I first got interested in mulleins
when some came in with some really crappy soil I was given by a
neighbour a mile away: he was a farmer digging out a slope to build a
retirement bungalow, and I needed some bulk without digging into my
own fields. I did what I wanted to do, and in the spring a few of
these unplanned things came up: at first I thought they were
foxgloves, but then my anorak instincts kicked in, and I knew what
was growing, and encouraged them. The only other stand of mulleins I
knew about was five miles away, and those fizzled out over two to
three years, but clearly there must have been some nearer. The second
year my glorious six-to-eight-foot-high half-wild specimens were
attacked by the caterpillars of the mullein moth: I don't know how
they knew where to come, but they homed in like cruise missiles.
You've got to produce an awful lot of seeds to survive if more than
half of your flowers are destroyed by caterpillars, then most of your
seedlings germinate too soon for any given winter, then most of the
rest fall in unsuitable places.

So I tip my hat to the verbascum family: they aren't thugs, but great
big softies like you and me.

(OT: Holy cow! BBC Radio 3 is doing every bit Beethoven ever wrote
this week: but is that _really_ that wonderful weepy Irish tune, "The
Last Rose of Summer"? I'm not sure my fragile emotional structure can
stand up to this. Boi Jasus! it must be happening, entoirely: it's
moved on to that ridiculous tiddly-iddly-om-pom jiggy thing. I didn't
know Beethoven did Irish, FGS! Reckon he knew how to dance with his
arms strapped to his sides?)

--
Mike.




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Old 07-06-2005, 09:01 AM
Kay
 
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In article , Nell
writes
I'm in west mid-Wales, very acid soil, damp - although this last winter
and spring there has not been a lot of really heavy rain unfortunately.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your thoughts. Yes, indeed, I think I will
enjoy these beautiful flowers. As you all say, they are so easy to
remove. However, I am grateful for the advice that I remove the spike
once the seeds begin to form.


No - not once they *begin* to form! - once they begin to ripen, ie the
seed pods turn from green to brown.

The flowers open from the bottom of the spike upwards, so you have seed
pods developing at the bottom while flowers further up have still to
open. If you remove the spike when the first seeds begin to form, you
will miss most of the flowers.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

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Old 07-06-2005, 01:16 PM
Nell
 
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Kay wrote:
No - not once they *begin* to form! - once they begin to ripen, ie the
seed pods turn from green to brown.


Kay, THANKS!
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Old 07-06-2005, 03:09 PM
Pam Moore
 
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On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:57:30 +0100, Nell
wrote:

On a large property I have about a dozen foxglove plants at the moment,
all with dark purple flowers and they are beautiful and charming. They
popped up in various places in the early spring along with the weeds and
I plucked many out recognising them immediately, but I left those that
had appeared in attractive or bare positions.

This weekend the previous owner revisited and warned that if I don't
pull this dozen out immediately, the whole property will be covered with
them next year. He says that he spent years trying to get rid of them.
How true is it that they will become a frightful nuisance?

As I drive along country roads and lanes I see a few here and there,
never more than a dozen every half mile or so. If it were true that
they can run riot, I can't see why the verges aren't full of them.


I have a wonderful show this year of white and purple foxgloves. For
the last couple of years I have let them set seed and then vigorously
shaken the seed over my garden. If they come up where they won't be
right I move them or just pull them upand compost them. Once you have
done this for at least two years, you shouls always have them, as they
are biennials.
They can never become a nuisance except to any weirdos who don't like
foxgloves.

Pam in Bristol
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