Good-bye, old friend

Like any long-term relationship, you come to take some garden stalwarts for granted after a while. You just expect peonies to parade their showy spring blooms every year and for goldenrod to light up your fall border. These plants don't demand extra attention. They just do what's expected of them.

Yellow foxglove (Digitalis grandiflora) is one of those steady-on kinds of plants. I never gave mine much thought--just appreciated the soft yellow blooms that never failed to show up in the shady spot next to the patio.

That is, until this year.

Truth be told, they were not my first choice. I tried (and tried and tried) to establish the more common foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, in that area. I love the look of its soft pink flowers and taller stems. But, like delphiniums, I couldn't manage to keep them alive for more than a few years and, even if I did get blooms, they were never the stately spires that I so admired in English cottage gardens.

So, I 'settled' for the yellow foxglove--at first a pleasant and unassuming replacement, but so reliable that it eventually grew on me.

I should have noticed when it didn't bloom in June this year, but with so many other flowers to admire I didn't. And in July I was busy watering and weeding. When August came, it dawned on me that something was amiss, but I couldn't place just what it was until the other day when I noticed that the turtlehead looked lonely.

I understand that yellow foxglove has a life expectancy of four to six years. I'm sure these plants had exceeded that. Still, I'm saddened by their demise. Not a garden standout, but an exceptional supporting player, I'll be planting more. They deserve an encore.