With the right care, you can keep your foxgloves flowering for longer and ensure that foxgloves fill your borders next year
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Foxgloves are quintessential cottage garden plants. When I think of these blooms, I imagine an English pastoral landscape, a small cottage, wildflowers, and foxgloves shooting skywards, injecting pink and purple flashes of color in the borders. It is hard not to be romantic about this plant, for it is a timeless favorite of many gardeners.
Foxgloves typically flower from mid to late spring and bloom in a range of colors, from Barbie pink to Arctic white. Gardeners prize foxglove flowers for adding vertical structure to borders and containers, but they are also a popular plant for pollinators. The open, bell-shaped flowers attract bees and insects who can often be seen feasting on the nectar-rich blooms.
While you may know how to grow foxgloves, it is important to know what to do with foxgloves after they finish flowering. With the right care and attention, you can extend blooming, and ensure that your borders are filled with foxglove flowers the following year. Here, I share all I know about how best to care for your foxglove plants.
Foxgloves are a classic cottage garden plant with their tall spires of tubular flowers adding height and drama to borders. They bloom prolifically in late spring and early summer but then what? Once foxgloves are finished flowering, there are a couple of options for what to do with them.
Should You Deadhead Foxgloves?
Foxgloves are biennials, meaning they grow leaves the first year and flower the next. After flowering and setting seed in year two, the plant dies. Foxgloves readily self-seed, with each plant producing thousands or even millions of seeds.
Many gardeners choose to deadhead spent foxglove flower spikes to control self-seeding. If you don’t deadhead foxglove seeds will fall to the ground and grow new plants wherever they land. This can result in foxgloves popping up all over the garden, which you may view as a bonus or a nuisance.
Here are some reasons you may want to deadhead foxgloves:
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To prevent rampant self-seeding. Foxgloves can spread aggressively when the seeds are allowed to fall.
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To promote reblooming. Removing spent flowers sometimes triggers new flower spikes, extending the bloom period.
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To prevent seeding in wild areas. In some regions, foxgloves are classified as invasive weeds. Deadheading prevents them spreading.
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For a tidy appearance. Deadheading makes the garden look neat once flowers fade.
To deadhead foxgloves, simply clip off the tall flower stalks back down to the basal foliage. Wear gardening gloves, as the leaves and flowers are poisonous. Make the cut above the first set of healthy leaves to minimize damage to the plant.
Allowing Foxgloves to Self-Seed
While deadheading foxgloves controls their spread, allowing them to self-seed creates beautiful, naturalized colonies. If you don’t mind foxgloves popping up in new garden spots, leave some or all of the spent flower stalks in place after blooming finishes.
Here are some tips for allowing foxgloves to self-sow:
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Shake the dried seed heads in late summer to help disperse seeds.
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Rake the area around foxgloves lightly to disturb the soil surface and help seeds settle into the ground.
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Mark foxglove seedlings when they appear so you don’t accidentally pull them out when weeding. The first leaves are rounded and form a low rosette.
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Transplant self-sown foxgloves in fall to desired locations or leave them to grow among neighboring plants.
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Save some foxglove seeds to sow in prepared beds for a neater look.Scatter them atop prepared soil in fall and lightly rake them in.
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Allow foxgloves to naturalize in wild or woodland gardens where their casual beauty fits right in.
Caring for Foxgloves After Flowering
Aside from deadheading or allowing reseeding, foxgloves require minimal care once flowering finishes. Here are some tips:
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Cut back the old, dried flower stalks in late fall or leave them for winter interest.
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Apply a balanced organic fertilizer or compost around foxgloves in early spring to nourish the next generation.
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Water foxgloves during dry spells for lush growth. Established plants are quite drought tolerant.
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Stake tall varieties like the common foxglove in spring to prevent flopping in summer.
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Mulch around foxgloves to conserve soil moisture and suppress weeds. Leave space around the crown.
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Divide large clumps every 2-3 years in fall to stimulate vigor. Discard the old center and replant the healthier outer pieces.
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Watch for potential problems like foliar diseases, aphids, slugs and Japanese beetles. Treat organically as needed.
Creative Uses for Foxgloves
Aside from allowing foxgloves to naturalize or keeping them neatly deadheaded, here are some creative ways to feature them:
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Plant clumps of different foxglove varieties together for an impactful display. Combine heights, colors and bloom times.
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Use tall foxgloves as striking vertical accents at the back of flower beds and borders.
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Underplant foxgloves with lower-growing perennials like catmint and coral bells.
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Feature single foxglove plants in containers on patios, entryways or in other spots that need a vertical accent.
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Allow foxgloves to self-sow under trees and shrubs or naturalize them in a wildflower meadow garden.
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Cut foxglove flowers to add height and drama to floral arrangements. The blooms last well in water.
With their tall spires in shades of white, pink, purple and more, foxgloves give cottages and cutting gardens their charming, old-fashioned character. Whether you choose to keep them controlled through deadheading or let these easy biennials sow at will, foxgloves are a beloved flower.
What to do with foxgloves after they finish flowering
Foxgloves are biennials, meaning that they will not bloom in their first year after germination. Over winter, young foxgloves will remain dormant before blooming the following spring.
With the right care, you can extend your foxglove flower show this year, while also saving seed so that foxgloves will grow in your yard for years to come.
Deadheading foxgloves (Image credit: itsabreeze photography / Moment / Getty Images)
Foxgloves are popular flowers that attract bees, and fortunately for us gardeners, they are not complicated plants to grow. Once your blooms begin to discolor, droop and fade, a simple but important job is to remove spent flower spikes. Always use clean, sharp shears, such as these secateurs from Walmart.
Regularly removing these flower spikes once they have finished flowering prevents the plant from producing seed, thus helping to conserve the plants energy. Efficient deadheading of foxgloves can help your plant to produce additional, later-flowering blooms. In my experience, second-flush foxgloves may only reach limited heights but will help to maintain interest in the borders for an extra few weeks.
Deadheading foxgloves will not be as time-intensive as the deadheading of other flowering plants can be. Zinnias, calendulas, or poppies, for example, can produce many blooms per plant, whereas foxglove clumps may only produce 5 or 6 stems.
Foxgloves flower from the bottom of the stem to the top. I would recommend snipping the stem down to the base, at the point where the foliage emerges, doing so once the stem has bloomed up until the last few inches. One of the most common deadheading mistakes is to leave the flower stems until all buds have flowered. This is to be avoided as doing so will allow the plant to begin seed production and waste energy that could be spent on extra flower stems this year.
Before you remove every flower stem, however, it can be a good idea to leave at least one stem to give you plenty of flower seed for the following year, which I discuss in the next section.
Foxgloves / Saving & Sowing Seed NOW for next year’s blooms / Homegrown Garden
FAQ
Do you cut back foxglove after it blooms?
Yes, you should cut back foxglove after it blooms. For biennial foxgloves, this helps prevent self-seeding and encourages a second, though possibly less prolific, bloom in the same year.
How to keep foxgloves blooming all summer?
To keep foxgloves blooming throughout the summer, regularly deadhead spent flowers to encourage reblooming and consider planting perennial varieties for continuous flowering.
Will foxgloves come back every year?
Should I wash my hands after touching foxgloves?
Foxgloves can make beautiful cut flowers, but it’s important to handle them with care and avoid contact with the toxic sap. Wear gloves and wash your hands thoroughly after handling the plant and avoid touching your face or mouth while handling it.