Digitalis purpurea VIRTUOSO™ F1 'Rose Compact' common foxglove

Common foxglove is a European native and is found marginally in our country, too. Its flowers are so attractive that breeders keep hybridizing them and every now and then they introduce a new, improved variety. VIRTUOSO™ F1 is a recently introduced series (around 2010) comprising of strong plants with large flowers of striking colours. VIRTUOSO™ F1 Rose Compact is a lovely foxglove variety with large, rich rosy pink flowers that are decorated with conspicuous deep red blotches margined with white lines. It makes shorter stems and in fertile soil there are more than one stem produced from one plant making a bushy appearance.

Leaves are broadly lance-shaped, mid green, toothed at margins, and hairy. Foxglove is a medical plant but also quite toxic. Despite the fact that it doesn’t make any fruit-like looking berries that would attract children it is not recommended for mass plantings near playgrounds, school yards, or kindergartens.

Foxglove will grow in almost any soil apart from too wet or too dry. In the wild it is found in humus-rich soils in light woods and its margins, which means that it will love partial shade in your garden, or full sun if kept moist. Excess fertilizing may cause profusion of leaves but no flowers. Hardy to about -34°C (USDA zone 4).

Last update 23-07-2013.