Foxgloves: Beautiful flowers, wildlife accessories or lethal drug? Discuss.

Bring on the hummingbirds.

Josh is on a mission this year: to attract hummingbirds to our yard.  We have two feeders out, but we've also done a lot of planting that is supposed to cater to the hummers. Foxgloves are evidently some of the flowers that they like as they are bell shaped.  Hummingbirds adore bell shapes.

Notice the bell shape.

We had this shady area next to the house in the backyard, and when we moved in, it was filled with hostas.  My husband evidently hates hostas. The reasons for this hatred are still unclear, but they actually made him angry to look at. So the hostas went bye-bye, and foxgloves and impatiens moved in.  (Both are supposed to like a bit more shade than sun.)

Do not eat this.

Educational tip: many species of foxgloves are incredibly poisonous -- that means every part of them, from blossom to leaf to root and back again. So much so that according to wikipedia, some species are called Dead Man’s Bells, and Witches’ Gloves. Oddly enough, there are some medicines made from foxgloves.  (And if you don't take them carefully, you get very, very sick. Kind of interesting, huh?)



You had me at hello.


We still had a lot of room left after planting four foxglove plants, so I added some impatiens that I fell head-over-heels in love with at the greenhouse. These are double impatiens, but they look like little roses, don't they? They're baby pink, and I have a variation of tropical impatiens that are a lovely peach.



The lone hosta.

 Here's a little look at how it came out -- foxgloves and impatiens together in harmony. You may notice a lone hosta in there too under our gas hookup thingy. (Very technical term that only people in the industry understand.) That's staying there because the roots on those puppies are pretty serious, and I started to panic about hauling things out so close to potentially dangerous parts of the house. Josh doesn't love it, but didn't seem thrilled at the idea of hauling it out either. It's like we both think the thing is holding the pin to a grenade -- if we fight with it, the whole place is going up. And then the hosta will win the war.

You can see in the background what our little patio looks like in relation to the rest of the yard. It's starting to be a nice little place. I kind of love it.