The fantastic Mr Foxglove - Telegraph Foxgloves are also excellent mixed with any of the summer-flowering alliums. Plant the allium in the autumn and then move your foxgloves in over the top. I love them with the brilliant-value, huge-scale Allium cristophii, which lasts in the garden for decades - even on heavy clay - and yet costs no more than varieties such as 'Purple Sensation', which have a quarter of the scale. With foxgloves and alliums you've got a vertical rocket with a round sparkler, the perfect balance in any plant duo. I also love the white foxglove standing like organ pipes in the cutting garden where you can under-sow it with quick- flowering annuals such as the Californian poppy Eschscholzia californica 'Orange King' or cerinthe. Direct sown in April around the line of foxgloves, these will flower to coincide perfectly. Cut flowers Foxgloves are also one of the best flowers to cut for summer parties and weddings. Arrange them in huge buckets on their own, in two colours, some cut short to give the arrangement a heart, others left at full height to create the horizon. Foxgloves look good through a haze of something light and cloud-forming, such as the umbellifers Ammi majus or orlaya, or mix them in a hand-tied bunch with the scented, bosomy roundness of a peony. You can't do better than peony 'Duchesse de Nemours' with flowers that last two weeks (as do the foxgloves if kept cool). There's no better vertical than a foxglove spire for creating a vast hanging globe - a sort of chandelier of flowers - at a party. Wrap an 8in Oasis (floral foam) globe with chicken wire and then hang it at the centre of a room or marquee. Cover the ugly green Oasis with foliage - euphorbia, dill or amaranthus - and then poke in your flowers, the white Ammi majus to match the white foxglove and then the pink peony 'Monsieur Jules Elie' to add a soft contrast. Finish with a grass, such as Stipa gigantea, wheat or oats, to create the all-important strong silhouette. This combination works well on almost any scale, but a vast globe arrangement - all easily picked from a garden - is the best-ever centrepiece. For a wreath, the pods of Allium 'Purple Sensation' and honesty are both at their best just when foxgloves come into flower. I hate to waste these seedpods when I clear them from the garden to make space for something else, so I arrange them into a drying wreath that can hang on a door until Hallowe'en or Christmas. If you use wet Oasis as your base, you can add fresh foxgloves and the airy, giant Stipa gigantea to form a Catherine wheel effect. Remove the foxgloves when they've gone over, but leave the seed pods and grass to dry. Grow from seed With the amazing prolonged heat we've had over the past few weeks, it's easy to forget that summer is still a time to sow seed. If you get only one packet done in the next week or so, a foxglove has to be a strong contender. Sow foxgloves as soon as possible. They're biennial so it's already getting late in the year. They have minuscule seed, so are easiest scattered into a seed tray and pricked out from there. I've tried sowing them into a gutter pipe - to avoid the need for pricking out, planted straight from the gutter - but the seed is just too small to allow even, well-distributed seedlings down the guttering. It's better to sow foxgloves quick and high above a seed tray. This will help get them as broadly scattered as possible. Keep the compost moist (sitting the tray on capillary matting makes this easier). They usually take about 10 days to germinate and then three weeks to grow on to a size suitable for pricking out. In September, plant the seedlings out in a seedbed where they can stay until early next spring, when they can be moved into their final flowering position, each plant with a good spadeful of root ball and soil to go with it. I've just created an area of open ground for exactly this reason, with enough room to space them out 18in apart. This enables them to put on huge growth in the autumn when the soil is still warm and moist, so they're in a good strong state when we hit the winter and hence grow off again well next spring. You could also plant them into their final position in late summer/autumn, but don't overcrowd them with their siblings, or other plants. They won't then make the gargantuan, arm-filling clumps they're capable of when widely spaced. On 31 July, Sarah Raven's garden at Perch Hill, Robertsbridge, East Sussex is open 9.30am-4pm. Entry £5, under-14s free. Refreshments in the greenhouse café (0845 092 0283). For a range of foxglove seed, try Sarah Raven or Chiltern Seeds (01491 824675) Reader offer: Buy three foxglove 'Illumination Pink' jumbo plugs for £14.99 (TCB11848), or buy six for £19.99 (TCB11849). Dispatch August 2013. Subject to availability. Phone orders only, call 0844 573 6015, ref TET49. Credit/debit cards charged on dispatch. Delivery to all UK addresses. Buy Foxgloves from the Telegraph Gardenshop.