There are pot of signs that summertime has come — children get out of school , otherwise normal mankind get out of regular clothes and into lime green golf pants , and , in many garden , the weeds get out of hand .
To me summer entail hollyhocks . Flower rage come and go like UFO sitings , but hollyhocks , those grandiloquent , gangly members of the mallow family , rest democratic .
In Old English “ Rhenish ” is synonymous with “ mallow ” . The mallow plants that returned from the Middle East with the Crusaders were call “ holy ” or “ holly ” hocks . Whatever the name , the plants and their bright flowers were a strike in the color - famish Middle Ages .
In America , the common althaea ( Alcea rosea ) could easily claim rank in the D.A.R. , having arrived with the colonists . As almost everyone make love , Thomas Jefferson farm them at Monticello . As a few hoi polloi know , Celia Thaxter , tardy 19th century gardener and poet , grew them in her far-famed beds on Appledore Island , off the New Hampshire coast , where they were immortalized by American Impressionist painter Childe Hassam .
Seeds and plants have been usable from catalog vendors since the Second Coming of mail order . As I withdraw , a couple of years ago , both White Flower Farm , Wayside Gardens , and the venerable English firm Thompson & Morgan all featuredhollyhock cultivarson catalog covers .
hollyhock were the first plant life that I grew as a child , mostly because there was a modest stand of them established in our backyard , and the seeds were easy to gather and sow . I did not know at the time that common hollyhock are biennial , producing vegetative growth the first year after they are engraft and efflorescence in the 2nd class .
luckily , the works in our backyard didwhat hollyhocks do well — ego - seeding — and we had flowers every yr . Our hollyhocks were the single miscellany , with white efflorescence label by dark red “ optic ” . I watered them religiously , but otherwise , the hollyhocks grew neglected in a rather exposed spot just behind the sandbox . One twelvemonth a cony made her nest between the roots of the big industrial plant , undoubtedly amending the grunge regularly with organic material .
My current garden is family to two different specie , figure - leafage hollyhock ( Alcea ficifolia ) and the uncouth miscellany . I hurry to supply that I inherit my plant life from the previous owner , who did not live here long enough to see them bloom . The vernacular hollyhocks , tip artistically against the unpainted back fence , are pink doubles . The bloom remind me of the tissue paper flowers that we used to make on rainy days when I was a child .
The less common figure - leaf miscellanea remain firm on the polar side of my upper garden , in front of one of the lattice - work venire that camouflages the substructure supporting my back porch . It is just now producing medium size blossom in a wonderful tad of pallid yellow . Every meter I depend at my Alcea ficifolia I renew my opinion in serendipity . I have want one for year , and somehow never got around to ordering it from the catalogs . Now I feel as if I have find the proverbial loose lunch .
The problem with all the hollyhock is that their stems and foliage are , to put it frankly , rather ugly . The leaves , whether they are attack or incise , are large and coarse . The stem are tall and hairy . To lend bad to unfit , the flora are susceptible to hollyhock rust , which pretend rusty chocolate-brown splotches on the leaves . To my knowledge , no hybridizer has been able-bodied to come up with a more refined looking plant life .
Perhaps that is just as well . After all , hollyhocks in the country do n’t have to worry about elegance . There is a patch of common althea growing by an old service department near our summer cottage . These plants have been self - seeding for generations and are the chief adornment to a ramshackle holding that has been for sale for at least 25 years . The blossoms provide so much relief to the center , that nobody even notices the surly leaves .
In city gardens , you may plant things in front of althea , such as tick-weed or gentlewoman ’s drapery or even big raft of red geraniums to embrace up those less - than - perfect leg . After the plant life have flower , look until the seed pods dry out , then collect the seeds , or if you are lazy , let them self - sow . Afterwards , cut down the stubble . With althaea as with life , you’re able to emphasize the beauty and downplay the ugliness if you just make a little crusade .
ContactElisabeth Ginsburg
