Digitalis
Digitalis spp.
Special Features
Produces tall flower spikes that can reach several feet in height. Tubular flowers arranged in a column come in white, pink, purple, and sometimes yellow. Leaves are generally large, lance-shaped, and arranged in a basal…
Plant Specifications
Our team will help you integrate this plant into your landscape design
Growing Digitalis on Martha's Vineyard
Digitalis purpurea and its biennial relatives bring towering vertical drama to Martha's Vineyard's partially shaded garden borders in June and early July, their spotted tubular flowers rising in tall spikes to six feet or more in a display that is quintessentially cottage garden in character and deeply fitting in the island's historic residential landscape tradition. Siting in the light shade of oak-bordered garden edges on properties in West Tisbury and Edgartown provides the partial protection from full coastal wind that allows the tall spikes to perform without staking.
The plant's toxicity provides reliable deer resistance, and it self-seeds freely on the island's lean, acidic sandy soils to naturalize in sweeping drifts when managed with a light hand. Estate Care professionals allow foxgloves to self-seed within defined garden areas, editing emerging seedlings in spring to maintain an intentional distribution while sustaining the naturalistic, self-renewing colony character that is foxglove's greatest cultural asset.
