A few years ago I grew ‘Dalmation Peach’ Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) for the first time. It’s a gorgeous foxglove, carrying peach to pink flowers atop 2-1/2 foot tall stems. But its best feature is that it will bloom the first year, unlike most foxgloves, which are true biennials and don’t bloom until the second year.
But finding seed for sale was a challenge so I was particularly happy to collect a lot of seed from it. I grew some of those seeds last year but I had a lot of issues with some transplants last year and none of them did much.
Over the weekend I was telling my mom that I had started some ‘Dalmation Peach’ seeds a couple weeks ago, some newly purchased and some of the seed I’d saved.
“But those won’t come true, right?” she said.
I’m not sure what’s worse here: The fact that I’ve been wasting my time growing seed that won’t give me the plants I want or the fact that my mom was right. Again.
You can’t grow ‘Dalmation Peach’ from collected seed because it’s an F1 hybrid, a fact that literally never occurred to me until my mom said that.
There is no photographic evidence of this, but feel free to envision me slapping my forehead. Because, duh. I never even thought to check.
F1 hybrids are the first generation offspring of a plant pairing, usually created by humans, but nature can do it too. (Don’t get confused by what hybrids are, it’s simply taking the pollen from the flower one plant and applying it to a flower on another plant. This is not test-tube mumbo jumbo and it’s got nothing to do with GMOs.) What it means for gardeners, though, is that seed saved from F1 hybrids won’t come true.
Which means the seeds I’m growing in the basement—the ones I saved from previous years’ plants—are going to produce foxgloves, but they won’t produce ‘Dalmation Peach’. I might be able to identify the soil blocks planted with purchased ‘Dalmation Peach’ seed. That seed was pelleted and I sowed them just one seed per block. The collected seed is so small that, even sowing thinly, there’s probably 10 seeds per soil block.
It also means that I’m buying more ‘Dalmation Peach’ foxglove seed. Because a firm slap on the head is enough punishment for my lapse in thinking. I don’t need to be punished by not having my favorite foxglove too.
Ooh, bummer. I just got some Floret Dalmatian Peach seeds as a birthday gift, and I am soooo excited. I’ve never started foxglove from seed or winter sown, so my fingers are crossed.
They grow very easy for me. Good luck with them!
Your mom’s right, I’ve made that mistake with hollyhocks. 🙂
Ack! Well, you never know, some might come out close! I need to get another round sown this spring for later bloom. Hoping some of the plants we have now will bloom this year. I’ve lost some to rot the last couple of years—been too wet around here in houston.
Ok you have convinced me to add this seed to my list of flowers I’m starting this year from seed! Swallowtail has it….hoping it does well in my zone 5a garden!
It will do great in your garden. Enjoy!
Don’t you hate that when it happen? You will still have some lovely foxgloves.
Thanks, Lisa! You are an optimist.
Does this mean that if you put purchased plants of this in the garden and let them go to seed that it won’t work either?
It does, unfortunately.
Hi there! I am a young, Generation Z gardener, and recently started a blog about gardening in college. I have posts on vermicomposting and some of my gardening tips. I would appreciate if you would check it out! If you like the content, give me a follow and share it with friends. If you don’t like my blog, I would love to hear your feedback and comments. dormlifegardening.blogspot.com