Are you sure it didn't bloom? Most foxgloves are biennials so grow from seed and produce a rosette of foliage their fist year then bloom, produce seed and die in their second year. If purchased from a nursery, these are typically sold at the start of their second year, so should bloom for you. The presence of the tall stalks would also indicate that, as they are only produced to hold the column of flowers. And if it 'dropped seed' it had to have bloomed as seeds only come from the ripe, pollinated flowers.

Common foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea, prefer at least partial shade and moist soils. That planting looks very exposed and quite dry, so your plant is looking stressed. And I'd guess it is also dying, as I am pretty certain it did bloom and has now completed its life cycle. But you should get new plants from any seeds it dropped.

What Gardengal said.

I miswrote ..... It had a few blooms that were already on it when I bought it at the nursery just as you say. So I think you're probably right; it is probably a second year plant. It didn't get any new blooms though after getting it in the ground. I assume it dropped seed.

It is in partial shade most of the day. The pic was taken during a brief time that it's in the sun. I thought it should get some sun after reading up on it.

Can I save this one or just wait for the new plants ?

Thanks,

Al

As Gardengal explained, these plants live only two years - producing only foliage their first year, then flowering, setting seed, and dying the second year. That being said, I have had a couple apparently regrow from the crown of the old plant and bloom that same year. If you want, you can cut back the dying stems and foliage, leaving the roots and crown in place and see what happens ... But don't count on re-growth; they're not supposed to do that :-)

If this plant did drop seeds, next year you will see only rosettes of leaves, which will return the following year to bloom.

Wow a complicated plant. I was interpreting dying as dead "for the season" . Then next year the whole plant would come back.

Seeds: Do the dropped seeds hopefully lead to a whole new plant ?

I thought it was a perennial and everything came back next year.

Thanks for the education.

Al

If the plant you purchased is not a hybrid, then the seeds will probably produce new plants for you - just leaves next year, though. If it is/was a hybrid, the seeds may be sterile or may produce flowers different from what you saw this year.

One way to have foxglove flowers every year would be to plant another mature (second year) foxglove next spring. Thereafter, you'll always have one blooming while the other is in its juvenile year.

A truly perennial foxglove is digitalis lutea. Much smaller flowers, but they seem to be very reliable here in zone 7. The dainty flowers are a cream-yellow color.

Ok thanks.

The way it looks now is that the leaves are green but the vertical stems are dead; quite dead. I'm assuming I don't need to move it or do anything now. We just got a bunch of rain .

AL

You could remove the dead flower stalks to neaten things up a bit. Glad someone got some rain! They keep promising us some, but it hasn't shown up yet, just awful humidity.

Yes we've had some rain this summer. Can't wait for fall. Enough of the heat. I will eagerly await what this plant does next spring.