Forget lights. Forget sowing indoors. I’d sow in situ and put a piece of wire netting over the spot to keep the birds off. You know, I’m sure, that they are biennial and won't flower until next year? After which they will mostly die. So a ‘bed of foxgloves’ is a temporary affair unless they like the conditions and self sow for you.

As for for the ones you’ve got sown in the tray outside, get them out of the sun. D purpureum is native to places where 90c rarely ever happens and the sun is nothing like as intense as it is in Ca. They grow in cool climate woodland edges with plenty of rain.

WAG here ....

seeds usually are planted in early spring.. when the soil is cool.. the days are warm.. and the night cool again ..

is it reasonable to be planting seed in mid july in z9 .?????

look at it this way ... by this time.. many plants are in flower.. creating and maturing seed ... and those seed usually drop and sit there .. over winter... and sprout in late winter or spring .... starting their normal cycle ... you seem about 6 months out of phase ... one of the reasons for this.. is tiny babe seeds can take the high intensity of mid summer sun and perhaps lack of water .... as they cant get a root mass down... to overcome the daily onslaught ...

i am sure they do things differently in CA .. lol .. but could this be an issue???

ken

ps: you ought to also look into winter sowing ... rather than saran wrapping plants in your windows ... especially in your zone .. im thinking you might be making it much harder than need be ...

This won't help you now but I've always wintersown my foxgloves with success. But I am in a very different zone from you. But still, I would check out the wintersowing forum here, or the wintersowing Facebook page (I'm not on FB so I don't know much about that, but I think it's much more active). The forum here is slow but if you can access the FAQ page there is a lot of info there. Maybe this method will work for you. Feel free to contact me personally if you need/want or can't find more info.

And yes, as Floral says, if you are not already aware, foxgloves are biennial, so won't flower the first year. I did have reseeding from mine but also wintersowed some each year to add just to be sure to keep them going. I do recall mertonensis being touted as a perennial, and I did grow some, and I no longer have them, so not sure if it was my neglect (very possible!) or the fact that they are not really perennial that is the reason I no longer do.

Lastly, there is a perennial foxglove that I have. It is not nearly as showy, tall or eyecatching as the biennials. It is a beautiful pale yellow, and I do love it, especially as it pairs nicely with many of my hostas. Also reseeds prolifically.

Hmm, so I went to find out the name of my foxglove because I forgot it (it's digitalis grandiflora or ambigua) and two things. First, I saw with some quick glances that perhaps there are now other perennial foxgloves. Second, I've decided after seeing all the photos that I simply must have more foxgloves in my garden!

:)
Dee

Edited to say Ken and I posted at the same time (or Ken posted while I was typing!). Great minds think alike, or something like that, lol. Wintersowing may be the way to go!

Ken, no need for a WAG. Foxgloves, being biennials, can be sown in late summer/early autumn. The OP is not out of synch. They germinate in the still warm soil, the babies overwinter and they flower the next year. Just like many brassica vegetables and Sweet Williams, wallflowers, stocks, etc. It’s standard practice. The same technique works with many perennials. You get plants sooner than with winter sowing, which isn’t really a thing in temperate climates.

It says in Sunset Guide and on the package to sow in July or August. Nursery is in California, and foxgloves are common here in the woods... my yard is effectively woods. I know they're growing a few streets over from me in someone's shaded front yard, and the local nursery was selling larger plants this summer. So they absolutely should grow here in the shade, which I have in spades!

I will move them out of the sun; it just said it needs full sun to germinate which was confusing because they grow well in shady spots! It isn't that hot here, by the way: it will be 80-90 for a few hours in the afternoon but mornings and evenings are 60-70 and night is 50 or so. Big, big temperature swings!

September/October is often our hottest month and when we get 100 degree days. We have two-three months of light frost which isn't that consistent, honestly. No snow. California Bay Area, just North, but somewhere between coastal and inland temperatures.

If moving them doesn't work, I can direct sow directly with netting. My spouse objected to it (he likes watching the birds from the window, which faces the plot), but I may be able to override him.

I know they are biennial and intend to resow a second batch so that I get continuous blooms, with luck, until they are self-sowing, which they ought to in time. If not, I can always re-sow. Here they are considered practically perennial because they self-sow readily.

Floral, it won't hurt them to germinate in the shade? I have another pack of seeds from the same vendor (for sowing in early spring for that second year round) and could try to direct sow? But I can also just move the tray over to a shady spot. Will they germinate without direct light? And are they always so fussy? Or maybe everything else seems so quick! Most plants germinate quickly here and grow well. We're known for being a gardener's paradise, although most folks don't have the shade I do thanks to large, shady trees and good sized fences in an otherwise suburban neighborhood.

I love foxglove, but I try not to be a fussy gardener. But, I'm fussy. [g]. So, too many times foxglove lean in my garden, and I'm just not willing to stake very much at all. I allow them to reseed and when they are leaning, I think, I'll get around to doing something about that some year. lol.

One thing I discovered 2 years ago. I bought some potted foxgloves to add to the garden when I didn't have as much reseeding as I wanted. The foliage was shiny and thin and not soft and fuzzy like all my others. It made nice rosettes. Then the flowers while not as tall as the others, were quite stocky and stood straighter. The next season, they came back strong, when other foxgloves either didn't show at all, or had to have half the leaves pulled off to look decent. So, I've decided to try to allow these to reseed and replace the others. Then we had a snowless winter last year, and they didn't show initially. Eventually, in late spring, they did come back while very few other foxgloves of the old variety did. They did not flower this year, but the rosette of foliage is attractive and healthy and hopefully next season they will.

But after all that, I don't remember the name of them. So sorry, but when.I get a chance, I will try to find it out. I can at least take a photo of them and I know where I bought them and I suspect they carry them every year. So I will try to get that information. Feel free to bump up the thread to remind me if it takes too long. [g]

My yards is very small. I have a townhouse only with a back yard, mainly grass and trees, fenced, but around the edge is a four foot wide patch which is a flower and flowering hedge border, mainly (and a little bit set aside for vegetables). Staking is no big deal for me because we have a huge eucalyptus grove down the street which drop **perfect** sticks that I use for staking everything! Used these for my indeterminate heirloom tomatoes and lemon cucumber very nicely.

It has now been 14 days and nary a seed is showing. It's fairly chilly here again, back to 70 degrees for a few days. I've put the tray in the shade and made sure that the soil does not dry by misting 2-3 times a day. It must have 200 seeds in it.

I'm giving it one more week in case they are slow outside for some reason, and then I will try again inside, without any plastic, I guess? I'm tempted to cover it now, outside, since it worked before, and yet the moment I vented the plastic, the seedlings all died.

Yesterday, I went to Lowe's nursery for some marigolds and saw they had tons of 5-6 feet foxgloves for sale, in pots, but I didn't buy them because the root balls were too large for where I'm planting them, between large maples with some web of surface roots. I usually do better planting small (3-4") plants there so they can figure their way around the maple roots.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong still. I have read foxgloves are easy, and sure enough, when covered, they germinated beautifully!

Like floral suggested, I'd just go a head and direct sow the seeds in the area in which you wish them to grow. They are a borderline weed in my area and that's how they grow naturally......by the acre in some areas!! You will get plenty of germination and enough seedlings that the birds will ignore or overlook. We have birds here too but there is never any shortage of foxgloves so they must not a prime diet staple :-)

When they get to a couple of inches tall, you can prick out the seedlings and space them for better coverage if you wish. btw, Digitalis seeds need light to germinate so do not cover the seeds....just barely press them into contact with the soil.

FWIW, if I am growing just about anything from seed, I direct sow where I want the plants to grow as I have no facilities indoors for seed starting.

I complain and look what happens! I woke up today and little specks of green have come up finally. It took 17 days, so I guess they are just slow. I'll see how they do, but suddenly there they are.

I have basically no indoor facilities for seeds either, although outside isn't a lot better.

Wow, hooray and problem solved! Foxgloves seeds simply seem to take forever to come up.

In the colder zones, timing seed sowing is often helpful. I have wintersown them in plastic milk cartons over the winter to get seedlings in early spring, then you get a whole season of growth for your trouble and in some cases blooms the first season.

Glad you finally got germination!