Foxgloves

Hi,

I've been trying to research this on the 'net but find the different info. confusing - perhaps because different varieties behave differently, or perhaps just because I'm dim?!
Anyway, I grew some foxgloves from seed last year and they have flowered beautifully this year (despite being in full sun - didn't realise I was supposed to plant them somewhere shady?!) but the blooms are now dying off so my question is - what next?
Will they die altogether now, or come back next summer? I took biennial to mean they will live on but won't flower again now til summer 2016. But have just read that some are annuals and others short-lived perennials so am confused!
Either way, will mine be likely to produce seed-heads that I can save from? And given that I failed to plant any more seed this spring, does that mean that I will be bereft of blooms next year now, with them being biennial?
Thanks for any help/clarification.

 

If you have any spent flowerheads leave them on until they drop their seed. This should ensure you have some foxgloves for 2016.
As for 2015 it depends on whether you have any seedlings around right now. If your foxglove was a bought one you may not. So nip out PDQ, buy some and scatter them around - that way you just might get some seedlings ready to flower next year. But it is rather late.
Biennials germinate one year, overwinter as smallish plants then put on weight for a big flowering and seeding effort fairly early the following year. Most will die back after that, but foxgloves sometimes stagger on for another year or two, but are unlikely to perform as well, especially if they have already produced lots of seed. Job done and all that. So that is why they might be described as perennial.

If you have lots of seedheads on your existing plants you could hedge your bets by cutting about half down in the hope of extending the life of those plants and leaving half on to sow the next lot of seed for you.

They will grow in most places, ask the ones that select the dry and sunny hedgetops as their preferred venue!

 

Yes, leave them to self seed, they will be everywhere , I planted mine 3-4 years ago they come up in the most odd places, I dead headed a lot of mine as I didn`t want many more, once the seed start turning brown, save a few for back up, leave the rest once they get to a decent size you can move them where you want them.

 

I let mine self seed and then thin the plants out when they get too big.

I hate wasting perfectly good plants and so pot up the thinnings and plant them elsewhere in the garden or give them away.

 

Brilliant. That all sounds much simpler and more manageable than I was expecting. I have some old seed lying around so I'll get them into some modules under cover now, but even if that fails to produce blooms for next year it sounds like all this self-seeding will make 2015 my only bloom-free year for a good while.
Thanks for all the helpful advice :-)