How to Grow Hollyhocks

This staple of old-fashioned cottage gardens is enjoying renewed interest. Hollyhocks add summer color, height and a restrained exuberance to the garden. Hollyhocks grow in most climates but have some requirements to do well. Learn to add this longtime favorite to your personal landscape.

Things You'll Need

• Hollyhock plants or seeds--annual or perennial
• Sunny, sheltered garden spot
• Well-drained, rich, loamy soil
• Trowel
• Reliable source of water

Instructions

1. Determine whether the hollyhocks available to you are annual or perennial. Both need the same growing conditions but will behave differently in your yard. Annual hollyhocks produce base-leaves and flower-stalks the same year, then are usually gone.Perennial hollyhocks in seed produce base-leaves the first year and flowers the second. Perennial plants have produced base-leaves and may well bloom the year you plant them--or not until the following year.

2. Choose a sheltered, sunny, well-drained spot that lets seeds or plants grow undisturbed. Because hollyhocks grow four to eight feet high, the back of a flowerbed is best. Against a sunny wall, hollyhocks usually put on a splendid display. Enemies to good growth include: exposure to wind, soil with poor water runoff, consistent high humidity and poor air circulation. Unhappy hollyhocks are prone to rust, insect damage and stunted growth.

3. Plan to extend the life of perennial hollyhocks. Traditionally a short-lived perennial, hollyhocks benefit from flower stalks left intact long enough to reseed. For purposes of color-planning, perennials usually reseed true-to-type--from red hollyhocks you are likely to get red-bloom seedlings.

4. Add a small number of new plantings to your "patch" every spring. While you may produce occasional crowding, this will prevent sudden gaps in your landscaping.

Tips & Warnings

• Enjoy the history of hollyhocks, which are likely among some of the oldest cultivated flowers. According to some historians, early European explorers admired hollyhocks in Chinese gardens.

• Hollyhocks like rich soil. Plant in that funny spot close to your compost heap.

• If pesticide spraying is necessary, wear protective clothing and do not use sprays on windy days.

• Keep children and pets away from pesticide-sprayed flowers of all kinds.

Resources

• Cooptext.colostate.edu