It's Hollyhock season, in all their crushed velvet glory.
7
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3 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I love hollyhocks, but mine kept getting "rust" and finally, I just stopped trying to grow them.
Gwen_Wanderer
Level 7
July 28, 2024
2
Rust was probably one of the reasons they went out of fashion. In the nineteenth century, they were so popular everyone grew them, but that of course made them very liable to infectious disease.
@Fernapple it really is a shame!
How did they get the name hollyhock?
I've always found the name rolls beautifully of the tongue evoking wonderful connotations - prbably from being mentioned over the years in many English novels.
FrayedBear
Level 9
July 16, 2024
2
It seems that the second part "hoc" was probably the old English name for any mallow like plants, and the first part is probably from holy, referring to the, probably untrue, myth that the original plants came from the Holy Land. Cute.
I love hollyhocks. We used to make dolls with the blooms and toothpicks. Ah, that was a simpler, more innocent time.
HippieChick58
Level 9
July 15, 2024
4
They are a bit old fashioned today, and still thought a little bit short of the very best in taste. Like Victorian courtesans in their crushed velvet and best linen ball gowns, sitting in the most expensive boxes at the opera, but knowing they are still not quite ladies. Yet maybe today we have outgrown such sexist and class ridden attitudes, and can see their charm without judgement, and a hollyhock may be planted by a rose in the modern garden.
@Fernapple They are old fashioned, you don't see them as often today. I tried to grow them at a few houses I have lived in, but then we moved so I don't know if they ever took off. I don't think they are tasteless, I think they are truly charming.
@HippieChick58 No I don't think they are tasteless either, it is just that they had that reputation for a while.