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Hollyhocks for Beginners: How to Plant and Grow these Easy Flowers

© Jojo Sigurgeirson

These lovely flowers are easy to grow. They like lots of sun and moist but well-drained soil.

Planting Hollyhocks

Hollyhocks are perennials or biennials depending on your climate. In USDA zones 9 and 10 they are biennials. In zones 3 to 8 they may live over the following winter and bloom again if you cut the faded flower stalks off at the base.

Hollyhocks are often infected with a disease called 'RUST'. Planting hollyhocks in full sun in an area with good air circulation helps prevent this. A little RUST is normal and will generally only spread to other hollyhocks. Most people plant hollyhocks near the back of the garden, or where diseased foliage will be hidden by shorter plants.

Sow the seeds directly where they are to bloom at a time when the soil is above 10 degrees celcius (50F). The best time is in spring or summer. Seeds sown this year will bloom next year.

Growing and Fertilizing Hollyhocks

For their first year, hollyhocks will bear leaves only. The more leaves the better. Dress the soil around them with compost, rotted or mushroom manure or seaweed. Once the leaves have died back for winter, you can give your plants a little extra treat.

Rock phosphate or bonemeal is good for feeding the roots of the plants. Some people swear by fireplace ashes to help with flowers. Once established in a garden, hollyhocks often self-sow, forming a colony of plants themselves. The seedlings transplant well - do so on a cool day to avoid heat-wilting.

For more flower stalks, pinch out the growing tips once or twice early in the growing season. This gives shorter plants with more branches. In zones 6 and below, mulch your plants during the winter. Dormant terminal buds are sometimes injured by freezing so a protective mulch of straw, hay or leaves will help keep them warm.

In wet winter areas, the dormant terminal buds are sometimes injured by rotting. A well-drained place is the key to this problem. Double flowered types may need staking after a rain because the flowers fill with water and fall. If you live in a rainy or windy area, stake your hollyhocks well.

Hollyhock Varieties

'Chater's Double' - The double, ball-shaped flowers are red, pink, white or yellow.