What's eating my digitalis 'camelot cream'?

Digitalis 'Camelot Cream' is a biennial foxglove hybrid sharing the genus's typical pest pressures. Aphids, especially the specialist foxglove aphid, colonise spikes and foliage. Slugs and snails damage first-year rosettes, which is the most vulnerable stage. Toxic foliage deters deer and rabbits. Caterpillars of some moth species feed on leaves occasionally.

Yellowish-green aphids distort flower spikes and produce sticky honeydew, especially on biennial-year plants. Remove by hand or spray with insecticidal soap; avoid over-feeding with nitrogen which produces lush growth aphids prefer.

First-year rosette leaves are chewed with irregular holes; entire seedlings can be wiped out in wet spells. Apply iron phosphate pellets in autumn after planting out; use gravel mulch around crowns to deter slugs.

Holes through leaves and occasionally into floral tubes; frass visible on or around affected foliage. Hand-pick caterpillars; apply Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) spray if numbers are high on established plants.