Re: Re: Park Seeds Tip of the Month/Foxglove

On Sun, 11 Jun 2000 15:41:48 EDT LONDE@aol.com writes:
> Dean said he doesn't want anyone telling him his three-year old 
> Foxgloves 
> were supposed to die last year, so I won't.  But I would be 
> interested in 
> knowing if his are, as I suspect, one of the perennial species.  I 
> might add 
> that even the biennials self sow and can remain in our gardens for 
> many 
> years.  But in the end, a biennial is a biennial and a perennial is 
> a 
> perennial and that's a that.  

Janis --

What I said was that I don't want anyone telling the FOXGLOVES that they
were supposed to die last year.  Sorry, but they're just plain old common
Digitalis purpurea from a local nursery center.  Some author (and many
gardening authors aren't even gardeners) somewhere may have written down
in a book that D. purpurea is "biennial" but that doesn't make it a
universal truth.  I've had a lot of plants listed as "biennials" which
have lived for years -- and NO, I'm not mentally retarded, I know the
difference between last year's plant and seedlings which have come up in
the same spot.  Since D. purpurea are evergreen through the winter it'd
be particularly difficult for them to pull a switcheroo.

Once upon a time someone came up with this word "biennial" and then
erroneously applied it to a lot of short-lived perennials -- and no one
ever challenged these conclusions.  Sorry, but I let the plants show me
their life habits, I don't just mindlessly follow what's written in some
book.

Dean Sliger
Warren, Michigan, USA
Zone 6B





 

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