Super Hollyhocks!

My in-laws lifted their house and put a basement underneath in 2006. As a result of the construction, all of the gardens around the foundations had to go. Anticipating a garden make-over, the majority of the plants were taken to the compost/dump. (seems so sacrilegious....)

Anyway, on a subsequent trip to said dump, my husband (Luke) and I happened to see two or three hollyhocks standing tall in full bloom among the piles of discarded yard waste, as if to say "You can't get rid of us that easily!" Knowing my mother-in-law wanted hollyhocks for her Victorian / English garden, we came back with black plastic pots and shovels. The base and root ball (yes, root ball) was quite big so they were growing at the dump for at least a year. They barely fit in our largest pot, a #15, I think.

The garden where the hollyhocks were to be wasn't quite ready for plants, so we plopped the pot in a spot where it would be out of the way of the final construction touch-ups until we could plant them before winter. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men.... The hollyhocks remained in that out-of-the-way spot, toughing out our Minnesota winter in a pot above ground...and in spring I was amazed to find new growth. They had survived. That summer (2007) turned out to be their dormant year so no flowers but lots of leafy and rooty growth.

June 13, 2010 - Me in the hollyhocks. I'm 5'6".

2007 came and went, and so did many other projects that claimed priority over the hollyhocks. In 2008 it was time to transplant them to their final home. We dragged the #15 pot to the other end of the house and properly planted them. That year they had a small flower show - the flower stalks weren't much higher than three feet. .

That year we started seeing some plants springing up in that out-of-the-way spot where the pot had been. Baby hollyhocks! We allowed them to grow where they were, treating the area as an unofficial nursery. 2009 came, the babies got taller and added more leaves. The original plant, uh, plants, also grew taller and added many more leaves. Again its dormant year, it looked more like a hollyhock bush.

Enter 2010. This year we began revamping the gardens along the sidewalk and one of the projects was to transplant the baby hollyhocks to the garden with the original hollyhock. The babies had sent up the first flowers stalks of their young lives.
Note: It is not a good idea to transplant hollyhocks while in bloom, nor is it a good idea to bare root said hollyhocks during the transplanting process. Ours survived, but barely. Fall is a better time for transplanting hollyhocks.

June 13, 2010 - Almost 7' tall

The big hollyhock pulled out all the stops this year. The foliage was almost three feet tall by the end of May and had at least 24 flower stalks that were 4 1/2 tall and covered with buds. June came and the stalks kept growing...5 1/2 feet tall ....6 feet.... the tallest stalk actually grew 6 inches in one night - no lie!.... the first color peeked out at 6 1/2 feet... 7 feet....

June 13, 2010 - 6' 8 1/2" tall

July 1, 2010 - Over 8' tall

When Luke and I returned from a three week vacation, we came back to a giant hollyhock over 8 feet tall in full pink and white blooming glory. Luke is 6'4" and he can't reach the top of the flower stalks!





July waned into August and its intense heat and humidity. The majority of the flowers have long since faded away and are now setting seed, but there are a few late bloomers that are pleasant to see.

August 11, 2010 - 10' 2" tall

Today, I measured the tallest flower stalk at 10 feet 2 inches tall.

August 11, 2010

I know hollyhocks are tall, but is this normal?!

Plants on the Move?

Today was one of those days when I absolutely love my job and can't picture myself doing anything else. Approximately 80*, low dew point / humidity, bright blue sky, and a pleasant breeze just strong enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay - weather so vastly different from yesterday (96* air temp + 70% humidity = 103* heat index, so humid clothes are drenched in 15 minutes, air so thick you felt like you are moving in slow motion) it feels like we've fast-forwarded to October!

It was my Deephaven clients' day for garden maintenance. As a preface, their property is surrounded by woods. As I walked around the house I startled a doe who went bounding off, but not too far. A little further down the path I startled her fawn. Actually, I think we startled each other because he didn't run away. I stood stock-still and he looked at me with his big black eyes as if to say, "Hey, I've never seen something like you before! What kind of animal are you? You look sort of friendly." He actually took two or three steps closer to me! We were about 15 feet apart, and there we stood. He was so cute and spotted! I decided to press my luck and slowly reached down for my camera, which was close by. But just as I began to move, the fawn bounded away. This meant I would be spraying Liquid Fence today. yippie.

My project today was to dig back the Astilbe that had over-grown a flagstone path leading from the driveway down the hill into the back yard. Since I leave the flower stalks up during winter, the Astilbe has self-seeded very freely and very well. When the seedlings were small, they didn't pose a problem along the path. But after two years, they started to gain size, over-taking the path and all but hiding it from view and making it difficult to navigate - even for me. Today was the day. I dug and I pried and I scraped and, finally, lo! behold a path! No more gingerly high-stepping to avoid damaging a plant, no more foliage pulling at pant legs, no more flower stalks slapping arms. The path is now visible from the driveway and once again beckons a garden wanderer to come explore.

As for the plants I pulled up, I had Astilbe coming out of my ears! I didn't realize so many had grown! Thankfully, I had many wonderful places that had been plantless for too long and they welcomed the little Astilbe gratefully. That is what I love about gardening - finding plants that sprang up on their own, usually under other plants where they would be crowded, not get enough light, and grow into a funny shape; and then relocating them to a place in the garden where they can have all the space they need, where they can be seen and appreciated; and create a new garden in the process - for free!

I love how gardens always change - I wouldn't have much of a job if they didn't!

Rearrange for a New Look

The rain finally stopped yesterday, so I went to one of my client's to actually get some work done. I spent most of the time removing the tulips from the containers around her front door and planting them throughout the gardens. Tulips add a wonderful vertical element when planted in a patch of groundcover astilbe (Astilbe pumila). I also wove some tulips through a planting of Annabelle hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescans 'Annabelle'). The hydrangeas are typically bare until the first part of May, so the tulips will add a punch to the area in spring. The annuals come next week, so I had to get everything ready for the big installation.

I spent today working in my yard. It's amazing how much my yard has, well, gone to seed (see "About Me"). My husband and I scheduled when the Big Yard Revamp will take place - it was much too big a project to tackle today. So I focused my energies on the garden along the sidewalk leading to the front door.

This garden has been a weedy, uncohesive mess for too long. After weeding (it always surprises me how much time that eats up!) I started planting. I had saved various volunteer perennial seedlings from clients' gardens (after making sure there was no where to place them in their yards, of course): lady's mantle (Achillea mollis), catmint of unknown cultivar (Nepeta sp), and unnamed perennial sage (Salvia sp.). I moved the achillea closer to the front edge, planted the salvia in groups of three - the magic number - near the back, and the nepeta in a meandering line. Next I filled in the spaces with tulips. The space actually looks like a garden now! I can't wait to see how everything fills in.