The ideal spot for growing on has maximum all-round light. Ideally, plants should have warm roots but cool tops. Hollyhocks will be ready for planting out in the garden by June, but won't flower well until the following year.
If you get the odd plant trying to flower sooner, snip off the flower spike. This helps the roots to get established before the demands of flowering begin — otherwise you might end up with a weaker plant and that could lead to more trouble with rust. If you have bought your hollyhocks as plug plants, pot them up in larger pots and allow them to establish a good root system before planting in the ground.
If you have bought hollyhocks in larger containers with established root systems, plant them outdoors May-July, or alternatively in autumn. Space them around 60cm 2ft apart. To help the plant establish well, sprinkle mycorrhizal fungi Rootgrow onto the roots of the plant before placing in the planting hole. Water well after planting. The essential thing to know with hollyhocks grown in containers is that they need plenty of room. Hollyhocks have long taproots as well as lateral roots that need space, so the deeper the pot, the better.
Containers with a barrel-like shape work best. Young hollyhock plants can be planted into containers over summer.
Add a stake to each plant to give it some support. Water them a few times a week, particularly if the weather is warm, as containers will dry out quickly in a drought. Just remember that in the first year your hollyhock plant will be establishing its roots and foliage, and it will go on to flower in its second year. Water newly planted hollyhocks and seedlings regularly. Once the plant is established, you can reduce watering but make sure they are watered in a drought.
Hollyhocks growing in containers will need regular feeding with a liquid fertiliser. At this stage they are quite slow growing. These babies are unlikely to flower until the following year. About months after you sewed your seeds your hollyhocks will have reached adult size and will reward you with beautiful tall spikes of hollyhock flowers. They do not seed true, so the flowers may not be the same colour as the plant from which you obtained your seeds. If you want a specific colour of hollyhock flower then you wll need to buy either a pot grown plant or a named varierty of seeds.
The only difference is that the flowers will be doubles. In my experience pot grown hollyhocks do not establish as quickly as when they are seeded in the flowering position. This is because hollyhocks produce a very deep tap root, which is what makes them so drought resistant and able to grow in crevices in between paving slabs.
When they are pot grown it is harder for them to grow a good tap root and when you transplant them you risk damaging the tap root. Having said this it can be done. You just have to water them well until established and accept you may lose a few.
When you seedlings begin to appear you may find you have more than you want. Now it is time to thin them out and just leave the largest healthiest ones. You may be able to gently dig up the spare ones, and either move them elsewhere or pot them up into pots and grow them on a bit. Be aware though that if you break the tap root the plant will probably not survive being moved.
Any that you manage to pot up and grow on can then be planted into borders later in the season or given away to friends. Afer your hollyhocks have flowered and they flower all summer long leave the flower heads on the plant to form seed.
Hollyhocks are biannuals and although some of them will go on flowering year after year , you will also lose some of them each year and so you need to have the next generation coming on to replace them. This may all sound like quite a lot of work, but you will be rewarded by the most glorious sight every summer once they start to flower.
They really are magnificent and will keep popping up new flowers right until the first frosts. In a very mild winter I have still had hollyhocks flowering in the cottage garden at Gardeners Cottage in December, but this is unusual. Once they have set seed and the seed has dried out and gone brown and is bursting from the seed pods, then you can tidy them up.
This is usually around early to mid September in Blakeney. Sometimes earlier if we have had a particularly hot, sunny and dry summer as we have this year.
Leave any new flower spikes to come on as they will keep producing new flowers for at least another month. Yes if you are very careful when you dig them up and make sure that you do not damage to deep tap root. This is best done when they are very young plants or seedlings. Once the plant has become established it is very difficult to transplant them without killing them in our experience.
The hollyhock seed should not be planted deeply. We find hollyhocks germinate very well if you just scatter the seeds on the surface of the ground where you wish them to germinate. Discover the three Golden Rules of growing hollyhocks, in this video featuring hollyhock expert, Mary Baker:. Hollyhocks can be susceptible to hollyhock rust.
This is easy to spot as the leaves and stems will be covered in orange-brown spots. In extreme cases the plant will die. The first signs of the problem are visible on the undersides of the leaves.
Remove infected leaves as soon as you spot them and burn them. In autumn clear away and destroy any fallen leaves as the fungus will overwinter in the soil.
This charming hardy climber creates a canopy of glossy green foliage, which in summer is strewn with flat white panicles of flowers on long stems.
Add colour to your garden this winter, select from pansy 'Colourburst', 'Grande Fragrance', wallflower 'Wizard' and viola 'Valentino'. A superb evergreen bearing delicate, waxy, bell-shaped flowers in the depths of winter, with lush green foliage for year-round interest.
Home How to Grow plants How to grow hollyhocks. How to grow hollyhocks — hollyhocks growing at the back of a border. How to grow hollyhocks — sowing hollyhock seeds.
It is claimed that back in the olden days Hollyhocks were planted in such as way as to screen the view of the outhouse from the main house which sounds like a very practical use of them to me. They like full sun with lots of heat. Hollyhocks are easy to grow, but they are not without their problems.
When growing hollyhock flowers, you need to keep an eye out for rust. Rust will typically attack the lower leaves but it may spread to upper leaves.
The past couple of years Rust has become a problem for me. Last year I snipped off any leaves that had rust on them and a couple of plants were so bad I just cut them off a few inches up from the ground. The plants I cut off continued to grow fungus free but they bloomed shorter, I was happy they bloomed at all.
The Spring season of rain and damp perpetuates the rust but once the climate dries out more then it is less of one. This old neighborhood has lots of hollyhocks growing around that are infected with Rust and the spores travel on the wind. So if I want rust free I probably need to grow a variety that is resistant. Botanical Interests have a variety of Hollyhocks that are reputed to be rust resistant and I will start some of those to try, they are called Happy Light s.
Hollyhocks come in various colors, even ones that are nearly black called the Watchman! There are also some dwarf varieties but I have yet to grow them so I cannot say how well they do compared to the others. If they grow well in your region you can keep them in check by pruning them back hard before they start to go to seed. For some people, the ease in which Hollyhocks reseed and grow abundantly is a nuisance but that is easily cured by not allowing the seeds to drop.
Love my Holyhocks, but have no clue how they got in my front garden! I live in oklahoma city, OK and am happily perplexed. How can I get seeds from my plants. My neighbor wants some! I am eighty and quite stiff in the legs and back. I think raised beds would be good. Any structure is helpful. My easiest bed is between the house and the curved walk to the front door. For easier care, How about a small tree, a few small shrubs, some ferns and hostas, and some varied plants in a couple of biggish pots?
My herb pots have been rewarding. I also had annuals in a strawberry pot that were colorful and easy. I am moving next summer to a new house with my son and his family. There is no garden. Any suggestions I have help for the planting but not the upkeep. That is a good topic to start on the blog, gardening for the aged and those with limited physical abilities.
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