Sunday, May 15, 2011

First post

Welcome all, this is the opening post of what hopefully will be a long standing  source of information for garden geeks and casual beginners. This blog has been set up to cover the fun stuff that the Sky project is doing and grants you access to our experiment data, as well as the garden picks and plant spotlights for each month. With all that said, we have the first plant spotlight of May.

Digitalis lanata - Grecian / Evergreen Digitalis

Whoa evergreen what?!  Yes I said it, Evergreen Digitalis, to be honest the idea of it made me both giddy and suspicious, then I thought 'Alright is that even possible?!' Well yes it is, this digitalis or foxglove if you prefer is truly evergreen and quite unique. I needs at least partial shade to do well and a rich organic-heavy soil to prosper. That last part about the soil shouldn't be to hard to do for you vertical horticulture fans out there. The leaves of this plant are oblong to lanceolate or in non botanical-geek-speak  they're like a stretched oval in shape. The leaves unlike Digitalis purpurea are not hairy and are a rich green in color. Flower stalks are rise high above the foliage and are covered in cream-yellow foxglove blooms that have rusty colored throats. The effect is dramatic enough to been seen from a hundred feet away.  This digitalis starts blooming hard in late April through may and will typically skip blooming for a year if transplanted but it's totally worth it. I cant say if this is still true but it was available in cell packs, under two names 'Grecian foxglove' and as 'carillon' either way look for the specific epithet of lanata and you should have a semi or fully evergreen type.

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