foxgloves from proliferations!

This is an experiment which seems to be working. I have four large containers full and am ready to get more Foxy. I found that after my foxgloves had bloomed and gone to green seed that the bottom half had proliferations. I pried them off the stem and put them in growing medium. Pots 1 & 2 are well anchored; pots
3&4 are looking fine from harvesting yesterday. Now, to get some more Foxy from some of those remaining. I have not seen this method in the propagation books at all! The first containers are mostly tall, creamy white foxgloves.

I couldn't tell so I will say anyhow- When I let my foxgloves reseed themselves, I got shorter plants with smaller spike of kinda purple flowers. Not wort the garden space- seeds are too cheap at Lowes.

This message was edited Jul 21, 2010 11:19 PM

But you see, pb, these are not seeds; they are genetically identical to the parent plant.
The will be as pretty as the parent plant UNLESS there is a very rare mutation in the cells of the parent plant after the proliferation is removed from the mother stalk. I will report next year, but so far all of them are flourishing!

What kind of proliferation are you talking about? Can you show us in pictures, or diagrams?


Thanks,


Evelyn

Yes, I want to see some pics too! (=:

So I know what to look for! I would love to have good strong pretty foxgloves.

I'm going outside right now to see what's out there.

I am very sorry; I have a camera, but I can't use it. I hope to learn one day.

All the little foxgloves are still alive, but there is not a lot of root growth on them. I may have to wait for that.

I read that you can take slips from snapdragons and root them; I may try that next.

I wonder if anyone reading this know where the offshoots will be in the biennial cycle? My (somewhat limited) knowledge of foxgloves is that you plant seeds one year, they grow all that Summer, then the following Spring, they have beautiful flowers. In my garden at least, they then die away and the next year all I get is seedlings sprouting from the pretty cultivars - these seedlings' flowers aren't very pretty.

If the offshoots [proliferations] are genetically equal, then it will be interesting to see if they "know" they already bloomed or not.

I really don't know much about this but I am curious (a retired engineer). thank you.

Paul

Mmmm...interesting question...

I went out and checked my fox gloves and sure enough I had some 'proliferations' around the base of several of them, so I divided them and planted them out in a nice patch. They all seem to be very happy.

I do not know if my proliferations were from one of my bi-ennial or from my perennial foxgloves (I have both kinds).

I also had a lot of 'self sown' seedlings and put them in a little patch. Now those I guess will be some kind of open pollinated flowers.

I also ordered more packets of digitalis seeds and plan to start some of those seeds now. Hoping that they will overwinter out in the garden and bloom next year.

Since writing on Aug 2, I looked in my Thompson & Morgan Seeds catalog and saw that they do have F1 hybrid ("Camelot series") that "..reliably bloom in the first year, with another heavy flush of flowers in the second year."

Note that they don't say they are perennials although they are in the perennial garden section of the catalog. My guess was that you would get two years of flowers and then it died but I called T&M and the customer service person seemed sure it would bloom "each and every year". At worst, you could plant a smaller crop each year and always get flowers.
Paul

I do know from experience that there is a perennial digitalis available but it isn't often listed in catalogs. I have it in my garden and it's a ivory/light yellow color. I don't know the name of it though.

Here I did a google on it and this I think is it: http://www.gorgetopgardens.com/perennials/digitalis-ambigua.html

I have planted the Camelot series from purchased seed (don't remember if it was T & M) in the past and they bloomed nicely, but if they were perennial they were short-lived in my garden.

Wow- thanks for the info tabasco! I had never heard of perennial foxxglove- I will order some this spring!

I also have a Pink one come back every year. I had this one for 5 or 6 years. I don't know the name of it. It doesn't reseed like the others I have.