I love the cottage garden affect I get from placing foxglove in my garden. I like the vertical and the flowers are absolutely gorgeous. I also like the pastel colors they provide against the often bright reds and yellows.
Here is the problem. While doing a little research on foxglove for this blog I discovered a few negative characteristics that is making me think I need to dig them up and get rid of them. It seems that not only can it be dangerous if ingested but it has been known to cause severe skin rashes that won't go away. Seed pods explode and are ingested causing breathing problems. The plant also reseeds its self quite easily and spreads rapidly. We often have horses on our property so we don't want it to spread to our pastures. Foxglove is poisonous to all mammals if ingested.
What to do?
It has been around forever in old Victorian gardens and cottage gardens. I would like to keep it in my garden but now I am a little concerned. Let me know what you think. Do you have foxglove in your garden? I would love to hear from you on this topic.
Here are a few more pics from my July garden:
The sugar Ann peas are more than five feet tall. Wow!
I would have a hard time pulling up those wonderfully pastel foxgloves. I had them in my garden at the farm and adored them. I never had any problems with them at all. Love all the photos of your Montana garden.
ReplyDeleteHi Teresa, I still haven't decided about the foxglove. I'm glad you enjoy the pics. I love my garden!
ReplyDeleteWe have lots of floxglove in our forest that we hike in and I have never heard of any problems with people getting rashes, or animals dying from it. I don't know if they still do , but they use to make digitalis (sp) out of it. The thing we worry the most when we going hiking is poison oak:(
ReplyDeleteCarol
Thanks Carol for your input. Lindsay has a terrible time with the poison oak. She loves to hike but is very allergic. I think will probably keep the foxglove for now any way.
ReplyDelete