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Picture a classic cottage garden and one plant will always come to mind: the
Hollyhock. This old-fashioned plant is treasured for its tall spires of colorful, saucer-like blooms in an array of colors from white through myriad shades of yellow and pink to deep, dark burgundy.
Hollyhocks make a wonderful addition to the back of a border, where they tower over their neighbors in the most charming of ways.
Hollyhocks are biennials, so expect lush foliage the first year, followed by their spectacular flowers the following year. Allow them to go to seed and you may have a new crop of seedlings the third year. Once you witness Hollyhocks in your garden, you'll never want to be without them.
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Grow Hollyhocks from Seed
You'll rarely find
Hollyhocks in the garden center: they're almost always grown from seed. Luckily, growing them from seed is easy.
Sow the seeds outdoors after your last frost date. Sow in a nice spot with full sun and protection from wind in fertile, well-draining, loamy soil. Sow them just 1/4" deep, since the seeds need some light for optimal germination. Keep the bed watered until the seedlings emerge, about 10 days after sowing.
Or, start seeds indoors 8 to 12 weeks prior to transplanting out after the last frost. Provide even moisture, strong light and good ventilation until the seedlings are ready to transplant out. Acclimate the plants by gradually exposing them to outside conditions for 1 to 2 weeks.
Thin or transplant the
Hollyhock seedlings 18" to 24" apart when they are 4" tall. Flower spikes may need to be staked, as they are quite tall.
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Our Hollyhock Choices Offer Something for Everyone
Hollyhocks are at their most beguiling when displayed in a riot of colors, which is why we offer a classic mixture to cover all the color bases. But if one were to covet just one hue, it would be deep, dark burgundy, which, in the plant world, equals black.
The Watchman is so dramatic that it deserves its own moment in the spotlight. Both choices are hardy in Horticultural Zones 3 to 9, are summer-flowering, and grow 6' to 8' tall.
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Our special mixture includes gorgeous white to pink to dark maroon varieties. Its presence transforms the world around us each summer.
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This prized, majestic heirloom has velvety jet-black flowers with a pale green-ivory center and dark green foliage.
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Managing Biennials
Annuals dazzle you in summer, then take their leave, while perennials persist as long as they are welcome, year after year. But biennials like Hollyhocks are a two-year proposition: they are sown the first year and bloom the next, and then they're gone.
If you have never grown biennials you might ask, "Are they worth it? I wait a year for this thing to flower, then it's gone." Well, not exactly. Biennials tend to be self-sowers which, once established, create their own little program. You have to get with their rhythm. One way is to give them a designated spot. Plant Hollyhocks in the rear of a bed and next year they'll make colorful, towering spires, dropping their seeds and creating a hollyhock neighborhood back there. A Foxglove (pictured) neighborhood might be a spot with dappled shade, in and around a shrub border. Forget-Me-Nots will congregate in a damp spot. Lupines, once introduced, might reappear anywhere; if it's the wrong place just yank the ones that don't fit and enjoy the rest.
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More Charming Cottage Garden Classics
A cottage garden is a happy, casual, exuberant jumble of well-tended and well-loved plants, with a heavy emphasis on annual, biennial and perennial flowers. There are lots of iconic cottage garden plants that you can add to your garden to achieve this charming look. Here are just a few.
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Easy to grow, this fragrant, hardy annual has dense clusters of delicate snow-white flowers growing in mounds. Perfect for borders, rock gardens, containers and hanging baskets, this carefree heirloom has a rich aroma that is, quite frankly, a bit addictive.
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A favorite cottage garden annual from yesteryear, Cosmos is an easy-to-grow self-seeder that thrives in virtually any soil. Prized as a romantic cut flower, Cosmos prefers to be direct-seeded after the last frost date.
This mix boasts bright white, pink and rose flowers.
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A sentimental favorite, Forget-Me-Nots yield carpets of ankle-deep, azure-blue flowers.They should be direct-sown into the garden as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring. They love moist conditions and also work well in shade or rock gardens.
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Prized in old-fashioned nosegays for its legendary fragrance and lush flowers, Heliotrope is a treasured heirloom with a heady, vanilla fragrance.
Marine has dark-leafed foliage and precious clusters of tiny, deep violet-blue, trumpet-shaped flowers.
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Featuring old-fashioned, elegant spires of delicate flowers, Delphiniums prefer cold weather and can be started outside as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring.
This mixture yields satiny 2 1/2" blossoms in shades of blue, purple, and white.
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This cottage garden and bouquet favorite has 20" spires of densely studded, star-shaped flowers.
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Sicilian natives, these nostalgic heirlooms have the pleasant, sweet fragrance of honey and oranges. Large clusters of dainty flowers are borne on graceful vines that crave support of a trellis, fence or secure netting. This mixture is a
collection of old varieties in a wide range of colors including white, cream, pink, rose, scarlet, lavender and purple.
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A cottage garden favorite from yesteryear, the stately yet whimsical Foxglove adds charming old-world beauty to summer gardens. O
ur traditional mixture yields tall, handsome spires with tubular, bell-shaped flowers in a pastel rainbow of soft red, rosy-purple, pink and cream. Humans, bees and beneficial insects all adore them.
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We share our best-of-the-best
recipes
in our online cookbook so you can feed your family and friends well without feeling frenzied, and practical, hands-on
Horticultural Tips
to demystify gardening with seeds. It's not tricky or difficult: it's more like easy magic.
If you need help with anything, our office hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. You can email us at
[email protected]
or call us at (860) 567-6086. Lance Frazon, our seed specialist, is happy to help you in any way possible. He loves to talk seeds.
23 Tulip Drive * PO Box 638 * Bantam, CT 06750
Phone: (860) 567-6086 * Fax: (860) 567-5323
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