Unusual Hollyhocks

Another gloomy November day and what can you do but dream of next class ’s garden or review the delight of this last summertime which has past times with such indecent haste ?

If you hold out in an old cottage in deep rural Suffolk then of course hollyhocks are mandatory just like roses round the door . You do n’t even have to plant them they just seem to appear . Except the one I fell entirely in love with last June just appear in my neighbour ’s garden and not mine . liveliness can be unjust sometimes . Of of course I could go and look at it and take photo of it but every nurseryman knows that awful feeling of covetousness when it comes to plants . Whilst it was in flower I lie alert at night wishing it was mine . All the other hollyhock in our garden here are single so I wonder how this came about and why in her garden ? The flowers are not to the full forked but they each have a fiddling ruff inside like piece of torn up petal . And the colour is such a sparkling pink . It is so superior to any of the other althea around here that it should be called something dissimilar .

Alcea rosea .

My other hollyhock is not really a hollyhock at all or though it looks like one and is nearly touch on . It is called XAlcalthea suffratescens‘Parkallee’ . It flowers in August and September when the hollyhocks are all but finish . This gorgeous plant life is sometimes listed as anAlcea , ( hollyhock ) and sometimes as aMalva,(mallow ) . It is neither of these ; nor is it aLavateraor aKitaibeliawhich has similar shaped prime . It is genetically near to all of these , as it is said to be a intercrossed betweenAlcea rosea , ( hollyhock ) andAlthaeaofficinalis . ( Marshmallow . ) Marshmallow is an increasingly rare idle heyday although I have seen it growing unfounded in marshy background around Dunwich on the Suffolk coast . It has goodly blue - green leaves and sick pinkish flower . ‘ Parkallee ’ was breed in Hungary in 1953 by Prof. Zoltan Kovats and then propagate in East Germany and made useable in the 1990s . It has delectable silken flower in the pale sweetheart , flex creamy with age . It flowers over a farseeing geological period on very tall bushy works . The flowers are not actually double but they have a nub frill of smaller petals . It has a very standardised sister called xAlcalthaea suffrutescens ‘ Parkrondell ’ which is obscure pink .

The aim in producing these lovely works was to combine the disease resistance of the dotty marshmallow with the lovely colours of the althaea . Most hollyhocks of course become disfigured by rust fungus ; a fungus calledPuccinia malvacearum , but these plants which become more like Dubyuh with old age are very rust tolerant . They produce to over 3 time grandiloquent so need to be well staked or they tumble over . They do not determine semen as they are hybrids so I was surprised to see a website offering seed of them . They are very well-off from cuttings though , I have had 100 % success charge per unit with this agency of propagating them . Most hollyhocks are curtly - survive perennials but my plants are now three long time sometime and endearing big hefty plant . Like all hollyhocks they have a recollective tap root so they are difficult to move , but as they are so wanton from cutting this is not a problem . This is certainly a plant to give your garden a scrap of recent summer glamor .

xAlcalthea suffratescens‘Parkallee ’

3 Responses toUnusual Hollyhocks

what a beautiful works ! I hold out in British Columbia where the rain is plenty and the rusting is even worse . And hollyhocks are my absolute favorite . I’ve read that you ’ve view seed for this wonder ? I would make out any information you have on how to get my hands on it ! give thanks you in progress .

Unusual Hollyhocks