Dalmatian Peach Foxglove

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'Dalmatian Peach' Common Foxglove

Digitalis purpurea  

(dig-ee-TAH-liss) (pur-PUR-ee-uh)

This Foxglove is part of the ‘Dalmation' series. They are colorful and tall but still a biennial. I used to worry all the time about my Foxglove plantings but have lately taken to letting them find their own balance. All the careful deadheading, staking, pinching never really produced better results then just letting the plants bloom and go to seed. The mother plants will die and even if they live to a second or third year they are not very vigorous by then. If the patch starts to look at little dilapidated adding a few plants to the gene pool can be helpful.

I don’t think that these flowers were quite living up to their color potential on the nursery bench. They should gain better color after being planted.

Chocolate Cosmos

Cosmos atrosanguineus 'Chocamocha'

(KOS-mus) (at-ro-san-GWIN-ee-us)

This is an interesting species of Cosmos that certainly bucks the popular trend of pastels, washed out colors and yellows that seem to be dominating the color space right now. In this climate Cosmos is treated as annual but is a very reliable self seeder. The flowers of this particular species are sterile and the plant is extinct in the wild. All plants are from a single vegetative clone. It has been hanging on that way since 1902.

The slightly fragrant flowers appear in summer and keeps blooming until the frost. Like most Cosmos this species is a native of Mexico.