Annie, those are beautiful. I love Hollyhocks, but they dont seem to last long for me. I have never seen that leaf form in one. Very interesting looking. I had my first one since several years last yr, and it returned this yr. I also winter sowed a few more.I love the ruffled edge on tasha.
Tammy

Annie, that pale pink with the edging is just beautiful. I love crosses like with hh and poppies; it is so exciting to see what you end up with.

I am truly impressed with the healthy disease-free leaves. I already have rust so bad that I am going to chop down some. One I hit with the orchard spray wile passing is looking pretty good but is so bushy you can barely see the blooms. Are you spraying?

glenda

You convinced me I need to grow Hollyhocks again. Love the light pink one's. That's one color desperately missing in my garden. :(

Oh Annie the Tasha Tudor pink created by the bees is stunning. It reminds me of the HHs that grew wild at the side of our apartment building when I was a child. I love leaves as much as I love flowers so the fig leaves are like a second bloom for me. My HHs are relegated to the pool side of the yard because of rust. Please tell me you have a cure, a way to stop the rust. It is not on any other plant in my garden.

Oh Hollyhocks! They are one of my favorite all time flower. I think they are just so charming. The singles like your are my favorites too, very classic. I am eagerly awaiting mine to bloom!

Do you find the fig leaf do much better against the rust problem? I have been wanting to try them but every year I go to order them they are sold out.
~Meghan

Beautiful, mine are still so little :(

The hollyhocks are beautiful and I don't see any rust either. I love that soft pink color on the first one. I had fig leafed ones too years ago but they didn't last long. The regular leafed ones seemed to live much longer.

Truly lovely! I haven't tried them in a long time - I love those tall vertical flowers like hollyhocks, foxglove, delphs. Foxglove and delphs are very difficult for me here so I should do more hollyhocks.

Just lovely! I sowed some hollyhock seeds last year but they are not blooming until this year. I'm looking forward to seeing what color they are. It seems that most of the figleaf hollyhock flowers I see are pink. Is that just because the pink ones are the ones people take pictures of, or is that really their most common color?

Parent Hollyhocks from 2009

The Tasha Tudor HH's came from her farm years ago. They remained true every year until this year. These are the original colors. I hope some of these survived.
I had cream & pink singles, which was all she grew.
Here is the cream:
{{gwi:669572}}

Red Hollyhock grown from seeds I got from Janie in Texas.
{{gwi:669573}}

This is my favorite - Tasha's Pink hollyhock. They towered over the garden in a delicate pink. So lovely. I hope some come back true. It will be such a devastating loss to me if they don't.
{{gwi:669574}}

Tasha is no longer with us, but you can order seeds on-line from her son who has commercialized his mother's legacy. That is so wrong! He offers other colors, but you need to know that Tasha only grew pink and cream. Anyway, suffice to say that it is not the same as getting them from the old girl herself.

I don't do anything to or for my Hollyhocks. I water them when it is very dry and amend my soil by adding compost or manure hay whenever it looks like it needs it. That is about every two years or so. I don't thin them either.

~Annie

You have some beauties, Annie. White is very elusive in my area. I finally got a yellow some years ago, and now I have quite a few self seeding. Also have the dark one, but mostly the pinks and reds dominate.

I have both rounded leaf and fig leaf varieties. This morning I checked the hollyhocks down by the potting bench and they have fig leaf shaped leaves, but I can't swear they are your Tasha's. I really hope so tho! A Hollyhock called "Apple Blossom" has been growing there for four or five years so who knows? It is a pale pink with a greenish center. This year there are three Hollyhocks down there.

Woo-wee, the Hollyhock "jungle" off the back porch is suffering from alot of yellowing and rust this year, more so than any other season. I don't thin them either or dust, one theory is that the spores of the fungus over winter in the soil. I just don't have the heart to rip them all out.
Usually I put up with it and remove ugly foliage as it appears.

The vet across the road gave me permission to gather seeds from a particularly beautiful hollyhock in a front bed near the road. It was a pale red with a yellow center. Seeds are still in an envelope in the seed basket. I'm so behind getting my seeds in the ground this year.

Annie,those are all lovely,especially love the light pinks and that white one.We have a lot of rust with them here,and ours didn't even come back this year,unless the darn gophers ate them.TFS
Kathi

Annie, those are so pretty! What is the purple plant in the foreground of the last pink hollyhock picture? I love the combo.
kay

I remember Mother, Grannie, my grand aunts and Grammie (my great-grandmother) having to deal with the gophers in S.Ca. They had gopher traps that I helped them put down in the holes. I need to get some more traps for the voles here in my gardens. Blasted things do the same damage as the gophers did back there. Tunnels everywhere and chewing the roots off my roses and other flowers. It was gruesome to remove them from the tunnels, but war is war. The cats loved the trappings.

Hollyhock tips - most people over water them and that is the main culprit in succefully growing them. They really don't need to be watered at all unless you are in a drought. Too much water and you will get mildew. OF course, if it is rainy and high temps it would be very difficult to control. Remove all the lower leaves and mulch with pine straw to keep the soil from splashing up on the leaves. That is how it all starts - Soil-born diseases, too much water and high temperatures. I plant mine where they get afternoon filtered shade. That helps too, I suppose.

Hope this helps.

Schoolhouse, I too hope Tasha's HH grow for you. I KNOW she would love your place as much as I do and be pleased to see her "be-lov-ed hollyhocks" growing in your garden. :)
I can send you some seedlings of the cream if you want them. There are several little ones up in the garden now. I just let my plants come up and grow where they wish. If they get too thick here or too thin there, then I move them. Can't bear to throw them in the compost.
Sometimes there is nothing for it - I have to remove plants that have taken over an area, but that is the exception.

I just put on my wide brimmed straw hat and sunscreen on my face and I am off to the garden. This heat is horrific but the weeds aren't waiting for cooler days, so I mustn't either. Still have gobs more tomato plants to set out...after I finish chopping out all those blasted Garlic chive roots!

Oh, and BTW, I planted out the Ground Cherries plants yesterday. I am optimistically happy about how they are doing so far. I planted them in soil like the wild ones like growing in, and them seem happy there. ((hugs))

~Annie

so very very pretty - my all time favorite flower - I remember them from childhood in my yard and also in my grandmothers gardens. I deal with rust but am trying a copper spray this year. I have to have them in my gardens.

Annie - that first pale pink one is just so beautiful - thanks for sharing and for the tips as well ......

Lynne

Kay,

The Purple flowering plant with the pink HH is a Buddleja davidii shrub, Buddleia, 'Dark Night', also called 'Black Night'. I think Dark Night fits the dark purple blooms better myself, but I've seen it listed under both names.

When I bought it, it was only five inches tall. It grew to three or four feet the first summer and then shot up the following summer to over six ft tall and four feet wide. In spring, I cut it back to 2 or 3 feet. It is now over 6 ft tall and over four feet wide and beginning to bloom. In mid summer, I cut it back about a foot, and it flushes back out with more blooms. With each cut, it branches out and the more branches it has, the more flowers it makes. Butterflies are frequent visitors.
I love its silvery leaves and brittle, woody trunk and branches. Blooms have a sweet fragrance, although not strong. It's commonly called "the Summer Lilac".
~Annie

I found a place that sells the seeds for the pink fig leaf hollyhocks, yeah! www.wuvie.net/hollyhocks.htm I will make a new place for them far from the old rusties. Thanks Annie, you have inspired me to try again.

Such lovely cottage flowers. I believe nothing says "cottage" quite like hollyhocks.

I never get mildew but mine get terrible rust. Except for the fig leaf type, I have beautiful yellow HH that don't get rust, but the rest is terrible.

Here's a hollyhock spray that I read about online, probably on this forum, but I've never used it, so I can't say if it does any good or not:

Healthy Hollyhock Spray
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbl canola oil
1/2 tsp ivory dish soap
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 gal water

I used to always have hollyhocks, and had one that came up in the lawn next to the pool deck for years. Now I don't have any, and I can't seem to get them going. I've tried just scattering seeds, and starting some in the greenhouse. They just get a few leaves and finally wither and die, if the rabbits don't get them first. I'm very sad.

Carol