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Organic Gardening

foxglove as a derris substitute

12 years ago

apparently Foxglove leaves can be made into a liquid spray and will do some of the jobs that liquid Derris (which now seems to be banned in the EU) was used for .

(I used it for the gooseberry sawfly amongst other things)

Has anyone any knowledge of using Foxglove like this?

A preliminary search in Google indicates that it is extremely toxic. Might it be dangerous to use as a spray therefor?

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Comments (6)

buford
12 years ago
It could be if it got on your skin. Foxglove is digitalis, which can alter your heart rate.
feijoas
12 years ago
Rotenone (Derris dust) is just bad stuff IMO.
I wouldn't go fooling around with digitalis either: as buford writes, it's an extremely valuable drug, but extremely dangerous.
I'd stick to bt and row-covers.
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jean001a
12 years ago
Bt doesn't work for sawfly. It works only for caterpillars.
feijoas
12 years ago
Doh, I read that, then went straight back to my default position of Derris=white butterflies!
flora_uk
12 years ago
I wouldn't do it Lucy. As far as I can see all the mentions of this concoction come from one source and are being repeated by others raher than being based on experience. I am a pretty gungho gardener regarding various scares but foxglove is a plant I wouldn't play about with. It can have serious effects, not just a bit of a tummy upset. I grow them and look at them and that's all.

I find that sawfly doesn't come every year. How many bushes do you have? I only have 4 albeit large ones and I have found that vigilance and hand picking work. Another idea I read is to spread a white sheet under the bush and shake it vigorously.
lucyfretwell
Original Author
12 years ago
I have between a dozen and 20.It is quite as lot to be hand picking and I usually end up having to spray when the caterpillars get out of hand.
I wonder is the white sheet essential? Would the caterpillars' style be cramped just by being shaken to the ground -or would you have to follow that up by gathering them up?
It is quite fiddly to arrange a sheet and if a quick shake (even that is pretty fiddly) could just slow down the infestation by half ,say, I might prefer that.
Apart from that I will have to look into the Bacillus Thuringiensis idea

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