The only thing I ever get on my hollyhocks are bees in the flowers.

Hi Cathy,

I just read in the post above that you found a Monarch-that is so great! I'm checking Milkweed in the area almost daily, the ones by my house anyways-nothing yet.

Last year I found a Hollyhock under my mom in laws deck- it was a pretty plant and had big flowers-this year-yuk!

I have a few painted ladies that I bought and I was trying to get leaves off of it for them but it was hopeless there all little holes. It terrible because its such a pretty plant.Let me know when you figure out what those little bugs are.
Good luck with your eggs!

Aggie

buford, You're lucky then. You ought to see mine; they look horrible.

Aggie, I hope that they show up there soon. I was so surprised when I saw that one yesterday and she sure didn't waste time laying eggs. I bet she was thinking, "Oh my gosh, I never saw so many milkweed in one place before!" :) I have a few hundred plants between the ones I have planted outside, the ones I have waiting to be planted, and the ones that I have in containers to stay in a protected area to put cats on. I'll have to get busy now and finish my butterfly cage, I suppose. I hate to drop everything else because I have plants that still aren't planted. Arg, how did I get so far behind this year?! Probably because I didn't know when to stop buying seeds and got in it over my head and my place looks like a nursery now. Oh well, I wanted the plants, so I'll just have to be patient and know that the plants will get in the ground eventually.

Yes, I think hollyhocks are real pretty, just like you said about finding that one under your MIL's deck, but mine are yuk too this year. It's like there's some plague of bugs that look like little flies. I don't know if it will work, but I'm going down to the hardware store today to get a fly trap. The flies are bad here this year anyway. Maybe it will take care of these things too, I'm hoping.

I hope you can find food for your Painted Ladies somewhere. I don't know what to tell you. I was hoping for food for them with the hollyhocks and now that plan is ruined. I planted some mallow, but something ate all of those off. It seems like I just can't win for trying.

Hopefully someone on here can tell us what those insects are that are after the hollyhocks. I know it would help if I'd have a picture and don't.

Cathy

I'd love to help you identify the problem, but that's just not enough of a description to go by. The leaves appear to be eaten, is that correct? Are the holes large or small?

You say that they look like ' little flies'. Like miniature house flies or is there something different about them? I don't think of any insect related to flies that chew plants, so I'm looking for a more detailed description.

Ha, I'm not sure without looking at them again. Hopefully when my daughter is around she can take a picture of them for me, but it might not be until tomorrow. I did have a good (what I thought was good) Olympus camera that I paid about $550 for and it last two years. I don't have the money to get it fixed so I'm without a camera. It was fun while it lasted. All that's left of the leaves are the veins practically, like just the skeleton of them. They really look very awful.
Cathy

Hey Cathy, Oh no guess what I just bought? A pink Mallow plant!! I found a pretty pink one and bought it-why not, right? What's one more?

I took a big piece of the Holloyhock yesterday and re-planted it in a better part of my garden so hopefully, it will root and stay there.

Oh and the Painted Ladies, there fine~I bought them with the fake food. I just wanted to see what would happen if I gave them a clean leaf. Well, they loved it! The fake food was not good enough and they ate all the leaves I put in there. That made me pretty happy to see them eat the clean leaves instead of the other stuff.

Aggie

Aggie, I bet that pink mallow really looks pretty! I'm glad that your Painted Ladies are happily eating the clean leaves, and I bet they will grow up to be very pretty butterflies. Congrats!
Cathy

I am reconciling with myself that hollyhocks just don't do very well here in Oklahoma. They really had rust bad this year (too much rain?). The malvas (mauritania) was the same way. I have jerked most of them out of the ground and am not going to grow them anymore. I've never found any PLs on them, and they are just a pain - shading other plants, and the geometrid cats just love em.

I, too, only find that the bees collect pollen from mine, and they're not really a "preference" plant for them either - they'd much rather have the lavendar (I planted more of that). The butterflies like it, too.

If I felt comfortable using even a homemade recipe to deter the rust, I would. But, I don't want to do anything that might injure the butterflies. If a plant can't hold its own and do reasonably well, out it comes.

I feel the same way about my achilleas. They just get shoddy looking when the blooms turn brown, and even after I shear them back, they don't rebound like I would expect them to. Butterflies do not nectar on them either.

Does the mallow get rust like the hollyhocks and malva?

Susan