I picked the perfect year to try growing hollyhocks again. I gave up about 15 years ago when the Japanese beetles arrived in our area and started devouring everything in sight.
This summer is the first one since their arrival where I haven’t had to take a soapy bucket of water in the afternoons and remove the Japanese beetles from my zinnias and marigolds. I mostly gave up on roses, hollyhocks, tall marigolds, morning glories, calla lilies and many of their other favorites years ago. Japanese beetles are destructive and thorough. I’m excited to say that this summer I’ve counted less than 25 in my garden total so far. I hope this is the start of a new trend and not a one-season fluke.
Hollyhocks are biennials (they bloom every other year), but Summer Carnival hollyhocks can be started from seed and will bloom that same year. We had a couple of weeks of severe weather where high winds were predicted, so even though my plants were growing straight with sturdy stalks, I opted to stake them up so they couldn’t get damaged.
A decade or so ago you could buy seeds for the separate colors, but now I can only find the mix. I sprouted my seeds 5 weeks before planting outside. The ones that only get about 3 hours of sun each day look healthy but still haven’t sent up flower stalks, and I’m not sure they will before frost. My plants that get about 6 hours of sun DID send up flower stalks that are 5 feet tall and blooming in shades of light and dark pink.
I’m going to push my luck with the beetles and plant more hollyhocks again next summer. They look really classy anchoring the back row of my favorite annual bed.