hollyhock advice please!

[Gardeniafleur]

I saw lots of hollyhocks growing this year and am absolutely dying for some big fat coral / salmon pink ones...

We are clearing a garden and renovating an old house so we won't be in it for this spring / summer anyway - but I should start growing now for the next summer, is that right?

Are you growing from plug plants or seed?

This is what I don’t know! Which is better/easier? I probably can’t buy in plug plants from GB as I’m in NI - we can’t even order eg seeds at the moment due to brexit. So nothing nice from Sarah raven or anyone.

But I can get seeds from B&Q etc so will probably need to do it that way.

Gardeniafleur Growing hollyhocks from seed is so easy. They grow quite fast. Start them off in little pots now, pop them on a windowsill, cold green house just to get them germinated, then put them in a really sunny place in the ground when they are about 2 inches high. Holly hocks hate growing in pots as a permanent position and they Love lots of sun. They are very hardy and need staking. Good luck, but you can’t go far wrong.

I think they’re biennial, flowering in the second season from planting, but I’ve not grown them, so it would be good for someone to confirm

Yes, they are biennial and flower in their second year onwards, although some very precocious individuals may flower in their first year, particularly if stressed and are biologically trying to reproduce by flowering and setting seed.
They also self seed readily and can become almost invasive if allowed to. They are also very 'promiscuous', due to cross pollination, and saving harvested seed from a particular favoured colour rarely leads to them coming true to that colour if you then sow them.
Because they are, like Okra, incidentally, members of the Mallow family, pinks do tend to be the predominant colour

Should I be starting the seedlings now then?

Do they get munched by slugs?

You want the Facebook Gardeners' Question Time Friends group - Jonathan Sheppard is a regular poster and he has the national collection of hollyhocks. He's very responsive to questions.

Hollyhocks prefer a well drained spot and can be martyrs to hollyhock rust. I used to have a self-seeded forest of them growing out of the crazy paving at the front of my house but my current garden is just too damp for them. The rust is pretty unstoppable too (sorry). It’s probably a bit early to start them unless you have a grow light as well as a propogator but once they get going they’re not hard to grow on.

Oh no, my current garden may be too damp then. I do have a nice well drained little bed by my front door that I would love to have them in.

During the first lockdown I grew some from packets of seed in shallow cardboard boxes on the (south facing ) window ledges. I am not an experienced gardener but I was really pleased with them. You do need to be patient, I followed the instructions to the letter. I think I planted them outside at the end of the summer (2020) and they flowered the flowing summer (2021). They were sold as doubles but I had mostly singles and a few doubles. They grew very, very tall. Lots of different shades of pinks. I did have to stake them and they did get rust coloured pustules on the underside of the leaves. They also suffer in heavy rain which we get lots of (NW England). Good luck. I think they are gorgeous. Waiting to see if they self seed next year.

Think I planted the seeds in March or May

Very helpful, thank you!

I love them too!