If you suffer from hollyhock rust in your garden look for varieties which are tuff-we find Alcea Ficifolia seems a good one for being rust proof-to a point.
Keep an eye on your plants-as soon as you see the first orange spots remove the leaf and spray the plant with a product for rust such as treatments containing MYCLOBUTANIL

Thanks Plantzzman. In an early thread on the same subject everyone said that hollyhock rust was incurable.

Goldcroft hollyhock rust can be controlled. It is very important to clean away old growth in autumn which could carry spores of rust over. Come new growth in spring give a preventative spray of Myclobutanil as more than anything the spray is a preventative and less a curative. remove any leaf that develops rust before it becomes a major issue spraying at the intervals shown on the bottle.

thank you, I will look out for Myclobutanil at the weekend and take the advice to use it as a preventative rather than as a cure

consty what I should point out is Myclobutanil is the active ingredient and not a product name. Check out the garden centre shelves-you should find plenty containing it.

dear plantsman and everyone
I found a product containing Myclobutanil (the product is for roses but its the ingredients that count it seems, so I bought it). I Gave them all a preventative spray (one plant looks suspiciously like rust might be starting.) Should I spray again as a preventative when they actually haven't got rust? How often?
I should add these are very young plants bought in garden centre few weeks ago

consty check the plant you think has rust-you will see pustules under the leaf. Remove any leaves which have them.
Obvously you have to spray again otherwise it wont act as a preventative as the chemical will only act for so long. Follow bottle instructions for controling rust. I would say once a month. More if its a wet year as rust seems to like damp conditions.

I have hollyhocks which get rust and am considering not growing them anymore as I can't find an organic control. If anyone knows of one I'd be glad to hear about it.

Something I have noticed is that rust over-winters on the weed Petty Spurge (Euphorbia peplus). Making sure you pull all of that out, denying the rust a winter host, should help.

Aren't rusts specific to their hosts? I'm not sure that rust on spurge will spread to hollyhocks. I often see rust on groundsel.