Foxglove

We grew some of these digitalis ferruginea a few years ago, and now they self-seed all around the garden, and have the happy ability to appear just where you could do with a bit of height (about four-five feet) in the borders. The flowers are small, but make up for it with exquisite yellow interiors, with sienna veins, and the almost starched collar of sepals where they meet the stem. The main stem is much more rigid than the common foxglove, so they stand sturdily upright and don't flag in dry weather. It's really quite a refined resident and requires little or no work other than weeding out the very few that come up where they will be in the way of something else. The only problem I've come across is that occasionally one will die without warning, before flowering, but it's rare enough to be inconsequential. Those insects that are able to get inside the flowers love them.