Hollyhocks

Everyone likes hollyhocks. I think the old-fashioned single varieties are prettier, but the ones with ruffly flowers are easier to find at the nursery. They are sold as seeds or "plants" like this package of bare roots. The pastel colors are nice, but unfortunately they remind me of double petunias on stalks. I just planted these along the fence by the recycle bin, so we can look at them when we go out the kitchen door with bits of stuff. Hollyhock roots sometimes don't bloom until the second year, but maybe I'll get lucky.
These single flowering hollyhocks in beautiful jewel colors stayed alive for years in what amounted to hot, dry dust along the side of the house. I felt sorry for them, and moved the clumps to a "nicer" place by the shed-- luckily they survived. Hollyhocks hate to be disturbed, but once established the plants are tough as nails. It's tricky getting them going too, and harder yet to propagate from seed. At the end of the season, the flower stalks tease you with pods filled with thousands of big seeds, but they never self-sow, and are devilishly hard to start in the ground (I've tried.)