Please Don't Eat the Foxglove

I tore out an old perennial garden this summer and put in a new one. Still a work in progress, the garden has actually done very well. Everything has survived, and most of the plants have thrived. In addition to dividing and moving some plants from other areas, I decided to put in a few plants that I'd never tried before, including foxglove. I planted a white one and a pink one, next to each other in a shady, well-drained area. Right now, the pink one looks like this. The bell-shaped cups of the foxglove are spotted on the inside. Very elegant, very stately. It is just beautiful.

And poisonous.

Oops. Forgot that one little detail. There is a reason I haven't had foxglove in my garden. It's coming back to me now. Foxglove is actually used to create digitalis, a heart medicine. But evidently, right off the stem, it's quite poisonous.

I won't be testing that. And hopefully, none of our neighbors will be, either.