Number 15 in Angela's wild flower top 20, The Foxglove

foxgloves in Thetford Forest

I took these photo's a couple of years ago on one of my walks through ThetfordForest.  This is in a part of the forest not far from my home ... us locals call it "top of Old Brandon Road"....where the trees had been felled in the previous autumn allowing an absolute myriad of wild foxgloves to really show off.  Normally, they're hidden in the woods.

I'm amazed at the variations in colour and I just love the combination of foxgloves and grasses. I also love the way that bumble bees completely disappear inside the flower, only to reverse out again a few moments later.

sideways foxgloves - my browser isn't playing nicely tonight

Apparantly every part of the foxglove is poisonous  so I suppose I've taken a bit of a risk in introducing it to my garden where the grandchildren play.  Neither of the boys has ever shown signs of wanting to eat flowers, but nevertheless they will be closely supervised around the plants.

The foxglove is more of a woodland plant than a meadow plant, consequently it isn't included in the standard seedmix for Meadowmat; but as luck would have it, Robert, our Production Manager has been experimenting with a woodland meadow mix which includes....foxgloves.  I'm hoping he'll let me trial some of it in my garden, against a north facing hedge where it's a bit shady, so this evening I've baked a chocolate cake to take into work tomorrow.  Don't know if that's a good thing or not....my cooking might just be my downfall.