Digitalis tip.

digitalis
Digitalis and roses, a wonderful combination. The colours harmonize and the ascending growth of the foxglove creates a nice vertical contrast. Perfect.

Nothing to complain Hetty, or?

Look, the digitalis in my garden are growing higher and higher. Even up to two meters in length. In top the flowers bloom, halfway the seedpods arise. It seems as if the digitalis look down on the roses from their great height. And so the harmony has gone.

What to do? Cut back and discard them? Cut back and put the flowers in a vase? These are two options, but there is a third one...

To bring back the harmony between the roses and the digitalis, I use the following trick. I cut back the digitalis stems to 50 cm above the ground. Next I place a bottle of water next to the plant and put the digitalis flower in. As I told you in a earlier blog, I fixed all the digitalis plants with a stick. So now I tie the flower to this stick. As a result, both the bottle and the digitalis cannot fall over. By this “cut back”, the digitalis is shortened half a meter and at the level of the roses again. 
By the way Digitalis is doing great in the bottle. Of course you should occasionally check whether there is still enough water in it!

During the open garden days, only one visitor saw a bottle in the border. She did not make the link with the digitalis. Apparently it is totally inconspicuous.

Because I have many digitalis plants this year, I need a lot of bottles. Consequently my husband and I have to drink a lot of wine.

A small sacrifice we are most willing to make for the garden!

digitalis, foxgloves
Digitalis and roses a beautiful combination.digitalis, foxgloves
Look how tall they grow .
digitalis, foxgloves
Cut back the stem and place it in a bottle.
digitalis, foxgloves
Tie the stem to a stick
digitalis, foxgloves
The garden is in harmony again.
digitalis, foxgloves
Bumblebees like foxgloves too!

Comments

  1. Gorgeous flowers and you are so creative - love the idea of flowers in a bottle.

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  2. Beautiful photos of a gorgeous garden - I'd love to be able to see it in person!
    Thanks for linking up at https://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2018/06/can-brussels-sprouts-be-edible.html

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  3. that's a very nice garden.

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  4. Dear Hetty,
    I have been so busy with gardening that I haven´t been reading any garden blogs for some time now. Looking at your blog today, I see you have been busy blogging as always.
    I too love digitalis. In my garden they don´t grow as high, so I don´t need to cut them and put into bottles. I really like the colour of your digitalis in the first and last picture. Most of my digitalis this year flowered in a pink purple tone and I would have loved to have some in more delicate tones such as yours is.
    Your garden looks stunning. I love how you combine roses with perennials and the colours are exactly to my taste. I also really like the climbing rose in the 5th picture and I am wondering where it is climbing up to? Is it a rose arch or a tree? Can´t see in the picture. I also love the bouquet in the third picture-looks so so beautiful.
    Best wishes,
    Lisa

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