|
June 2004
Hollyhocks
are a staple of the cottage garden, and have been for centuries.
It's not even that impressive to note that they were one
of the first flowers imported to Colonial America, when you
consider that herbs found in the fifty-thousand-year old
grave of a neanderthal man included the remains of hollyhocks.
Makes our 228 year-old country look pretty young in the
scheme of it all.
When
we moved to our current house about 6 years ago, there was
one of these plants already in the yard. sometime either
that first year or the next, the plant up and died, but a
new one grew up right next to it. Then that one died after
maybe a season at most, and if I recall, it was a flower-poor
year at best. Now all this was back in my Black Thumb days.
Sometime in the next year, the plant must have hopped the
fence. Because last year and this year we had four huge stalks
of this plant growing as big as you could imagine, with flowers
popping out all over. The leaves do have a tendency to get
scales, but the Pyola keeps that in check. The flowers at
the tippy tippy top are just blooming out now, and a lot
fo the rest of the plant has died off, so I cut off the ugly
branches, and lo and behold, there are some new smaller offshoots
starting to form new flower stalks! It's like the Hollyhock
that Could!
PyolaTM
and Soap-Shield®
Save on this Special Spray Combo
Gardeners should have these two products on hand right from the start of the
season -- Pyola to control insect pests and Soap-Shield to fight disease. Buy
combo and pay $5.95 less than if purchased separately!
Return
to Vegetable,
Fruit
& Flower Index
|
More
Fine Art Photography & Digital Art