Early to late summer spikes of single platters – mixed colors. The classic cottage garden flower.
Size: 2-5' x 2'
Care: Sun in well-drained soil.
Native: West Asia
Wildlife Value: Butterfly plant, host for Painted Lady butterflies
Hollyhocks have been cultivated in China for thousands of years where it symbolized the passing of time. They cooked the leaves for a vegetable and, also ate the buds. Transported from Middle East to Europe by the Crusaders and introduced to England by 1573. Grown in the Eichstätt Garden, the garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, prince bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria, c. 1600. Culpepper, a 17th century English herbalist, claimed the plant could be used to cure ailments of the “belly, Stone, Reins, Kidneys, Bladder, Coughs, Shortness of Breath, Wheesing, … the King’s Evil, Kernels, Chin-cough, Wounds, Bruises, Falls. . . (and) Sun-burning.” Both single and double forms grew in England by the time of Parkinson (1629). Parkinson said they came “in many and sundry colours.” John Winthrop Jr. introduced the 1st hollyhock to the New World in the 1630’s. Grown at America’s 1st botanic garden, Elgin Botanic Garden 1811.
In the 1880’s Mr. W. Charter of Saffron Walden in England cultivated frilly doubles, now known as ‘Charter’s Doubles.’