If I ordered fox glove plants now would they flower this year?

[Igl00]

TIA

Probably not. They should flower next year.

No they won't. And presuming you don't have any pets, as they are highly toxic for animals.

Well, as you say plants, that would depend on how big and at what stage they are. Can you go to a garden centre rather than ordering online? I bought some other plants yesterday and the garden centre had foxgloves with unopened flower buds in. My foxgloves haven’t opened yet, so still time.

My cats and my foxgloves have shared the same garden and ignored each other for decades. Unless you have a pet that's into chewing everything in sight, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

Fair enough. I wouldn't risk it is all. Just offering advice.

We are right to be cautious though, aren't we?

Lilies and alstromeria are a massive no-no if you have cats. Their pollen is seriously toxic to them - all they have to do is walk past a lily, get some pollen on their fur and then lick if off when they are grooming. I wish they would put warning labels on lilies, and also bunches of flowers containing them, because so many people don't know about it.

I wouldn't expect seedlings ordered now to flower this year, but you could probably get some bigger plants from a garden centre. Depending on the variety, I have found they can actually live for several years in my garden, and they self seed too.

Absolutely, I think so personally, yes. I remember planting 25 stargazers lilies that I purchased in a bank holiday sale many years ago - they were gorgeous and smelled amazing.

I came into the house to wash up having planted them all and just so happened to turn on the radio - ironically it was a gardening programme and even more ironically they were talking about lily pollen being poisonous to cats. I had no idea and I had three cats!

I locked them in the house with food and then spent another hour pulling the damned things up and putting them in the green waste. Lesson learned! As you say, labelling plants would help a lot. I would have felt so unbelievably guilty if I had left them there and they had adversely affected my pets in any way.

I think lilies are different as it’s so easy to get the pollen on you / cats. Foxgloves - unless your cat eats growing plants it seems pretty safe.

I think garden centres start selling potted ones around now - i definitely remember getting one for DH for Father’s Day in June, and they’d been in the garden centre for a while.