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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-005
Foxgloves
Digitalis purpurea
A tall, spire-forming biennial that spends its first year as a low rosette of soft, hairy leaves before sending up a two- to five-foot flowering stalk in its second year. Tubular, drooping, strawberry-pink, white or purple blooms line one side of the spike from late spring into summer and are worked heavily by bees. Every part of the plant contains potent cardiac glycosides and is severely toxic if eaten, with a narrow margin between a therapeutic and a lethal dose. It self-sows freely once established, growing best in full sun to part shade on moist, organically rich, well-drained ground that leans acidic to neutral.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–8
- Soil
- Silt · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moist · Moderate · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 5.5–7
- Plant type
- Biennial
- Mature height
- 2–5 ft
- Mature spread
- 12–30 in
- Plant spacing
- 12–36 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H.Ohashi
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African Eggplant
Solanum aethiopicum
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Agrimony
Agrimonia eupatoria
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Alfalfa
Medicago sativa
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Alsike Clover
Trifolium hybridum
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Amaranth Greens
Amaranthus tricolor
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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