Confused by my digitalis!

I bought some container grown digitalis about a month ago and planted them out. They were around 30cm tall with a few leaves but no other growth. No they've started to flower. I'm a bit confused because I thought they didn't flower this late into the year. Can anyone advise if I should leave them to grow or do I need to take some other action to ensure they show flowers again next year?

Thanks

 

Hi Kai. I don't think you have to do anything. With this cold weather many things are out of sync. I still have some Hesperis matronalis (Sweet Rocket) in flower. Its a biennial and I usually lift it about June after flowering and replace it with something else - but I couldn't do that this year.

 

I've got an ordinary foxglove (digitalis purpurea I think, the native wild one) which is supposed to be a biennial but has been alive now for about 3 years and has only just finished flowering for the first time.

Mine was confused because it was in a neglected container for most of its life, neglected, starving and barely watered, no way it had the energy to do its thing, until late spring this year when I planted the whole container (which also contained a neglected honeysuckle) into open ground.

I think after they've flowered and produced seed, their lifecycle is complete and they die. Unless its one of the perennial digitalis, but I know nothing about them.

 

As far as the perennial ones go, my D.parviflora is blooming again too. Stands about 40cm tall.


Last year D.lanata bloomed well into September.................

 

I have a very large Digitalis (a form of the native one) that's supposed to be biennial and its flowered brilliantly earlier this year and that should have been it; set seed and die but it's actually forming a new rosette of leaves around the base of the old flower stems!!

 

Hi Kai,
to make absolutely sure that they will survive, cut the flowering stems off.
But chances are that they make it into the next year anyway.

 

had a blue poppy which got lots of new leaves, right into late autumn, after it had flowered in the summer(and I didn't even let it go into seed) and it still died... I don't trust those new rosettes any more..Have some biennial Canterbury bell campanulas which have formed new rosettes too, now i am curious if they come again next year