Re: Hollyhocks

Janis, I hope there's an expert on this list who can answer your question.
Old-fashioned hollyhocks, probably initially planted 50 or 60 years ago,
show up any old place in my yard. Sometimes I weed them out and sometimes I
let them go, depending on where they are. In one area, however, I let them
bloom every year. By the time the flowering is over, the foliage is in such
awful shape that I cut the entire plant off at ground level. By late fall,
new foliage will appear, and the plants bloom the following summer. They
behave like true perennials, although they could just be seeding themselves
and fooling me.
 
Hollyhocks can take a lot of neglect. Some of the prettiest ones I've seen
here grew in the yard of a vacant house where hired men used to live. The
plants had no care and no water except rainfall, which is not normally
plentiful here in the summer. (Now the yard is kept mowed and I didn't have
a chance to collect some seed...the flowers were an amazing dark red,
nearly black.)

Myrna, Zone 3, Montana


At 01:01 PM 5/29/99 EDT, you wrote:
>One thing I don't think was mentioned in the recent thread about hollyhocks 
>is that they are biennial.  That means it is normal for them to put up
shoots 
>the first year, bloom the second year and then die.  Dr. Steven M . Still of 
>the Dept. of Horticulture, Ohio State University, lists them in his 'Manual 
>of Herbaceous Ornamental Plants' as a half-hardy biennial. But he does 
>mention that it is listed as a perennial hardy to zone 5 in some books,
which 
>may explain the confusion.  I have also seen it listed as a half-hardy 
>perennial.  Some of you said that your hollyhocks return each year.  Is it 
>possible that they are self-seeding?  Or are there truly perennial varieties 
>available?  --Janis
>
>>

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