This photo shows the main flower bed in my garden. Last year, I was surprised to find there wasn’t one foxglove to be seen. 3 years before, we’d planted our first foxgloves, which had bloomed beautifully for 2 consecutive years…but then…nothing!
In the absence of any foxgloves last year, I had genuinely worried that we’d lost these plants to frost or birds or squirrel activity. It was tempting to start digging over those empty patches of flower bed and planting different flowers to fill the gaps. However, my husband (who used to be a landscaper) will tell you that foxgloves are biennial, which means they only grow every other year, until the pattern of flowering and seeding has been established enough to ensure one plant takes over from the other to create yearly- blooming beds of foxgloves.
What can we learn from this foxglove fiasco?
1) Progress doesn’t always look like a straight diagonal line upwards. Apparent setbacks and failures often come before growth and success.
2) Knowledge is power. There are other plants in our flower bed that are perennial (they grow every year) and didn’t appear again after the first year of growth. It would have been right to replace these. If we’d dug up those empty foxglove patches though, we’d have lost this year’s foxglove extravaganza and unnecessarily spent out on new plants.
3) If you’re not sure, take some advice. I’ve learnt an incredible amount from my husband and mother-in-law who happen to be pretty expert in gardening through previous professions. They’re my “go-to” experts for gardening and I have others like them who I go to for advice on my coaching profession or personal challenges or other areas of life.
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