Having never grown foxgloves before, when the discoloring on leaves and pinching of buds at the base of the flower stalk began, I thought it likely was powdery mildew, and sprayed the plant with Safer Fungicide a week ago. The leaves have since browned considerably. I would appreciate any help. I have one other foxglove in the same bed, which so far looks healthy.
Foxglove, closer image of basal foliage.
Chemical drift from something else you sprayed in the local area?
I wouldn't have thought Safer's Soap would be able to destroy a plant like that but it's possible.
Spider mites? Could also be chemical damage from the fungicide. Foxgloves are sensitive.
I don't think it's spider mites, they will make a stippled yellow pattern on the leaves and the leaves will eventually die but they don't usually look like that. Does your Safer fungicide have neem or some other oil in it? If you spray oily things on plants and then they're sitting there in the sun it can sometimes burn the leaves. Or if you were spraying weedkiller nearby and it got blown over onto the foxglove it can do that too.
Thanks everyone: I looked at the Safer Fungicide label, and all it contains is sulfur with a warning not to spray in conjunction with oil based sprays, so you'all were clearly giving good advice. It didn't list foxgloves as one of the plants not to use it on, and I didn't spray it during full sun hours, however, the plant is in full sun, so maybe it's just sensitive as Calalily suggested. I haven't sprayed anything else even close to the bed all year, so that couldn't be it. I notice that even though the flowers are shrivelling up after blooming, the ones that bloom are being visited by bees and the spent ones are producting seeds, so maybe I'll see if it goes to seed and either discard the mother plant after that, or prune it back to basal foliage and see if it recovers. Any thoughts about either of those alternatives?
Any green is still photosynthesizing. I wouldn't trim it back to basal foliage but I would nip off the flower scape as low down as you can get it. It takes a tremendous amount of energy for a plant to set seed and if you want to redirect the plant's resources to the roots, you might want to consider whacking off the flowers.
