Sunday, June 01, 2008

Amongst the foxgloves glow.....

Look very closely and you might see some pretty little fairies dancing around these foxgloves here at Cranberry Cottage. This year these majestic, tall blooms also called Fairy Weed are everywhere in our garden. These are not plants for the faint~hearted as they seed each year where they want to go. Folklore says to pick the foxglove is to offend the fairies that live within the flowers and will bring bad luck, even death, to the picker and his family. We have decided that the fairies must know best and seeing how pretty they are looking...they do!

This year during the broadcast of the Chelsea Flower Show, I recall hearing Alan Titchmarsh something to the effect of not being able to imagine an English country garden without a foxglove. We have inherited them from the fairies themselves in ours and look how perfectly they are fitting themselves in with the other planting. In the Language of Flowers from Victorian times, a foxglove meant 'insincerity' which I find a harsh meaning for this flower. Luckily, a later version of the Language included the meaning 'a wish'.


I will leave you on this Sunday evening with a couple of poems celebrating the beauty of this most pretty flower...


"Through quaint obliquities I might pursue
These cravings; when the foxglove, one by one
Upwards through every stage of the tall stem
Had shed beside the public way its bells,
And stood of all dismantled, save the last
Left at the tappering ladder's top, that seemed
To bend as doth a slender blade of grass."

~~ William Wordsworth ~~

"Through the vales to my love!
Where the turf is so soft to the feet
And the thyme makes it sweet,
And the stately foxglove
Hangs silent its exquisite bells."

~~ Christina Rossetti ~~

"When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out the Foxglove's door
When Butterflies—renounce their "drams"
I shall but drink the more!"

~~ Emily Dickinson ~~


25 comments:

Teresa said...

Foxglove is my favorite. I have put out seed in the past and waited patiently for them to come up the following year. There is a definite magic to them! Thank you for the pictures.

Rhondi said...

Hi Heidi
I love foxglove but they don't do well here.
I hope you had a great weekend at Cranberry Cottage. I am having a front porch party. Come by for a visit and maybe you can join in. I'm not sure if you have a porch/deck or patio there.
Rhondi xo

Ragged Roses said...

Hello! Foxgloves have to be one of my favourite flowers. We have lots in our garden too and I will try to post some photos this week to show you. They are just so much part of the countryside, just beautiful. And of course they belong to the fairies!
Kimx
PS Your garden looks lovely

Anonymous said...

These are lovely, Heidi. I wonder if they would grow well here... I like flowers that seed themselves and wonder as they may!

Anonymous said...

Oops! That was supposed to be WANDER as they may!

Heidi said...

Hi Heidi, Obviously from the name of my blog, you can tell this is one of my all time favorite flowers! Loved hearing about the fairies too....many of them reside in my garden too!....Heidi :)

Nancy said...

Well, I never heard the stories, but if the fairies are involved, it has to be good. I am sure they are peeking out from the flowers when no one is looking.
Love you, Mom

Anonymous said...

Hallo Heidie,
hoe ging het schilderen in Cranberry Cottage? Wat mooi al die vingerhoedskruid in de tuin. Natuurlijk is de engelse naam veel mooier! Zelf hebben we ze ook en elk jaar komen ze zo maar ergens weer op en ze mogen ALTIJD blijven! De witte vind ik helemaal mooi.
Groetjes, Janneke.

Reginas Cottage said...

Hello Heidi
Wonderful,your foxglove.I like it
very.I have also foxgloves in my garden.
Hugs,
Regina

Elizabethd said...

I so love foxgloves, particularly the cream and white ones. Mine, however, are all purplr this year!

Carolien said...

Hello Heidi!
We have purple and white ones here. I took a picture of some of them a few days ago, you will see them later on my blog.
I must admit I put one stem in a vase, it was snapped on the other side of our fence. The fairies told me this one wouldn't bring bad luck because I saved it!

Have a nice evening & hugs, Carolien

Anonymous said...

Your foxgloves,or should I say the fairies foxgloves are so pretty,I must try growing some here this year.Take care.

the tattered nest said...

thank you Heidi for your sweet comment! you made me feel better...I love foxglove! you lucky girl, they look so nice in your pretty garden!

BittersweetPunkin said...

I bought a foxglove plant but I didn't know how to care for it so it passed away quietly...I bet the fairies were really mad at me!

Anonymous said...

Hello Heidi, we love foxgloves too...they're just coming out in the garden now. It's one of my favourite times of the season.
Margaret and Noreen

Tanya Willis Anderson said...

Wow, Heidi, those foxgloves are gorgeous!!! Their color just pops - so pretty.

Tanya

Sweet Cottage Dreams said...

Oh Heidi, your foxglove are wonderful!!! I love them so much and really need to incorporate them in my garden some day. Your wysteria is the best I have seen. Your home is just wonderful and looks like a wonderful place to get away to.

xo to you and Dagi,
Becky

Ps: I will write you soon. Our son is home on leave and we have been busy with him..much love to you.

Betty said...

Hi Heidi,
I'm back after being absent while we were blessed with a visit from our dear friends, Marion and John, from Wales....we had a fantastic visit...just too brief....

I agree wholeheartedly that foxgloves are beautiful...in the south where I live, they are difficult to grow due to the heat....I have one lonely one in my garden....

Thanks for visiting with me....Betty

Mary said...

Your pics of the foxgloves are delightful Heidi. I cannot grow them here in the heat - but I remember seeing them massed in the English hedgerows - wild ones which were so pretty. There were beauties in large pots at Home Depot last week but I knew better than to buy them (expensive too) because they melt in the heat. And heat we have......stifling today and forecast to remain in the mid to high nineties for at least a week!

So, it will be warm on the front porch tomorrow!! Perhaps we'll move to the gazebo where we can turn on the ceiling fan while we sip tall, chilled drinks.

My days are so very busy lately and I get so tired working long hours in the garden, but in a way this is good as I'm having some early nights....but then I wake earlier in the morning - can't win at this game! Yesterday was a perfect sunrise - I was in the gazebo at dawn with coffee and laptop doing a little 'housekeeping'. Birds were noisy and busy - lots of babies in the trees waiting for breakfast. Today was a cloudy start and then the power washer guy came to clean our driveway - while I was watering the veggies. Now I'm inside cooling off - it's about 95 outside!
'See you tomorrow dear' - I'm baking a cake and have some great lemonade at the ready in case it's too hot for Earl Grey!!!!
Hugs - Mary.

angelasweby said...

Our foxgloves are just beginning to open their pretty faces to the world. I love the markings - messages in fairy code I'm sure.
i can now close my eyes and see them nodding their dainty heads in your garden at CC.
Hugs, Angela

Anonymous said...

They are very pretty Heidi ~ they do remind me of English cottage gardens.

Marie x

Andylynne said...

I have caught up on your blog after vacation of a week. I see you have been busy while I was gone :)Love the photo of the flowers.I planted two Foxglove plants, and have high hopes for them. I think they are as beautiful and statley as can be. But also have a soft other worldy look about them. I can see why they attract the wee winged folk.

Heidi said...

Hi Heidi, I agree with you! I love that entire house!!!....No, sadly we don't have a front porch, very few houses here in Southern California do unless they are in an older neighborhood...We do have nice patios though!! I am hoping to post mine in a couple weeks! We are having a baby shower for a friend of mine, so I am busy "fluffing" it!...I can't tell you how much I loved all the info. about "foxgloves"!!! Have even gone back a few times to reread your entire post!....Thanks again for writing me!!....Heidi :)

Mary said...

Thanks for visiting the porch today Heidi - nothing would please me more than to have you and Mom sitting out there with a cup of tea!

It's so hot - in fact dangerous as it will be 101 degrees Sat. and Sun. and continue in the 90's every day until next Fri. This is so unexpected as we were having such a nice Spring. I know the garden will suffer as we can still only water two days a week (Wed. and Sun.) for a few hours!!

Have a great weekend - are you off to Cranberry Cottage?
Hugs - Mary.

Terri said...

I've only had luck with Foxgloves one time. Maybe I should try some here.