By cutting the flower stalks you have done all you need to do. Did you save seed since they are a biennial? Now that they flowered that is their life span. What a lovely color.

Yes we did. This is our first time with these in particular and not very experienced gardeners overall, so sorry for the dumb question! But next spring do we pull these ones up since they are done and plant the seeds or will they grow back the next year?

I just googled it and this is the answer it gave

While the original wildflower is a biennial, many of its recent descendants are perennials, making it easier than ever to have elegant Foxglove blooms in the garden, year after year.

They might. Depends on your growing conditions. Here, common foxgloves have naturalized and many do return and reflower in subsequent years. While mostly biennial, they can also be short-lived perennials. I'd wait to pull until you see what sort of growth they might produce next spring.

Thank you all. We are in zone 6a so I’m not sure how badly the cold will effect it.

My goodness Chelsea there are no dumb question, this is how we learn! Last years plants will not come up again. In spring they will be wizened and easy to pull. You can plant the seed as soon as the soil has warmed in spring.

since you claim to be a newb .. lets be very clear ... the plant requires that you cut NOTHING OFF IN FALL ... and by next spring it will show you what COULD HAVE BEEN CUT off in fall ...

some peeps even consider that plants.. in some sense.. self mulch for winter.. so why clean it all up anyway ... or even worse.. spend money to mulch for winter.. after removing it all ...

in a few years.. you will learn... thru practice... what NEEDS to be done in fall ... and how to do it all ..

and keep in mind ... part of gardening is putting down the gizmo.. and just going outside and doing something ... we all learned by killing stuff.. so dont worry about it ... any lost plant.. is a spot for a new plant next spring.. besides.. no matter what you do.. odds are.. the plant wont suffer for it anyway ... its just as likely to die over the winter if you do nothing in fall ...

and dont confuse deadheading for extra bloom.. with cutting off flower scapes in fall ... i cant think of anything perennial... that blooms of last years scape .. so cut it down .. that said.. im sure someone will come up with some oddity that does.. but odds are.. you dont have anything like it ...

its 22 F today ... im glad its nice enough where ever you are to be outside in the garden ...

ken

ps: if leave it too long.. odds are.. in spring.. it will have rotted..and you cant just pull the dead scape out .. so never worry about getting too close ... you can clean it up in spring.. if need be ...

btw .... you should not need special rules for every plant ... this is all general cleanup ..

meaning.. yo dont need the gizmo to check on how to do it with each plant ...

no special foxglove rules....

“Last years plants will not come up again.” As gardengal mentioned above foxgloves can sometimes persist and flower again. They certainly do in my garden. I wouldn’t pull anything until it is clearly dead. This one was 3 years old.

There certainly are exceptions. I have grown a large patch of Digitalis grandiflora for decades. It is considered a perennial/short lived perennial. I should mark some and see just how many years I get out of each. I always allow some to go to seed but I have never had a bare patch.

Since Dalmatian peach foxglove is D. purpurea it will be interesting to see if it does return. My D. purpurea are biennial but inroads in breeding are always keeping us on our toes. Chelsea will you let us know if they return?

The one in my picture is a wild self sown D purpurea, not a hybrid.

I planted Excelsior Hybrids the year before last from seed, then put out the plants that fall, and they bloomed beautifully this spring. All but one of the plants declined after blooming and looked very bad and ratty so I got rid of them. ( after letting them go to seed). But I have one really nice, big foxgove clump left. The stalks died and looked ugly so I cut them off in early summer. But the leaves look quite healthy and if the plant was going to die I think it would have done so in the hot , dry summer and dry fall. I have hopes it'll bloom in spring.

Some from spring:

I think the surviving one is the white one on the right with about four or five stalks.

Erasmus how lovely!

:)

Dee

I will definitely report back. I loved having the foxgloves in the garden. They really are quite spectacular!

Beautiful.

Thanks! I'm starting to see some little seedlings coming up ...not sure yet if they're foxgloves.

Hello everyone,

I am a little surprised that this hasn't been mentioned already. You should always wear gloves when working with Foxgloves

That is a clickable link. Foxglove plants are toxic and can be a hazard to you, children, or pets.

ZM

Can be a hazard. But they are no problem as long as you don't eat them and you wash your hands after gardening .... as one always should anyway. Accidental poisoning is rare, even where they are a common wildflower.

I think a lot of animals know to leave them alone. I usually wore gloves when handling them but when I didn't I just washed my hands fairly soon afterwards. Kids are a different matter. I have had neighborhood boys in my yard who wanted to eat the " blackberries" which were poke berries. I explained to them that you don't ever eat anything outside unless you're sure you know what it is. Parents have to tell them these things.

Update! I promised I would make an update so here it is!

So the original Dalmation Peach foxglove plants did not come back. We took those all out. We had let it go to seed and now have an abundance of little foxgloves growing! There are so many and we did have to move some around so they were in better spots, but they are thriving. Very excited!