Foxglove Excelsior Mix Digitalis Purpurea is a short-lived perennial or biennial plant that has been introduced from Europe and naturalized in North America. Foxglove Excelsior seeds can be started indoors or directly outdoors, and once established this robust herbaceous biennial plant forms flat rosettes of basal ovate, lance-shaped leaves and produces tall, sturdy flowering stems forming spires of tubular flowers in shades of white, yellow, pink, rose, red, lavender and purple with conspicuous spots interlining the throat of the each flower.

Foxglove blooms in early spring and early summer, but if the main stem is removed after flowering is over, the plant can re-bloom in Autumn. Foxglove Excelsior Mix is a biennial, so its leaves form a rosette the first year followed by the flower spike the next year, and Foxglove’s real strength is its dramatic and richly coloured vertical accent, a look that is impossible to duplicate with another genus. The surface sowing has to be applied to Digitalis Purpurea seeds, and Foxglove is a very colourful plant that does extremely well in shade. The plant self-seeds under favourable growing conditions, so Foxglove can establish colonies in the garden persisting for years as if it is a perennial.

Foxglove also makes an excellent cut flower if it is picked when the blooms are half open. Foxglove leaves are a source of the drug digitalis and are highly poisonous. Enjoy, but do not eat !