Hollyhocks and Honesty...
Surviving Red Hollyhock
A slushy, wet winter's day - perfect for cleaning up the flowering annuals web-pages. This is usually lots of fun. I find new, colourful photographs, and refresh any jaded text. Aargh! I've done two of the oldest pages and have stopped, despondent, as gloomy as the weather out there. Hollyhocks and Honesty, your pages are a disgrace.
Saturday 15th August
For the sake of accuracy, I know that Honesty (Lunaria annua) is biennial, and that Hollyhocks can be short-lived perennials. So planning might be required to continue their beautiful flowering regimes each spring and mid-summer, respectively. Oops. I have been so thoughtless.
There are few (if any) up-to-date photographs, and as for the text... Written over fifteen years ago, I'm self-absorbed, as if I was living in a bubble. Words - light and limpid, and no thoughts of any substance. Frankly, I sound boring and unintelligent. Placing a terracotta piglet next to a red hollyhock is the most interesting thing I've written about. Hmm...
Variegated Honesty Lost...
So what can I say now about Honesty and Hollyhocks to put things right? Honesty? Blast! I've totally lost the variegated purple. I also seem to have lost the variegated white. I don't get spring carpets of plain purple like I used to.
White and Purple Variegated Honesty Flowers
And the plain white patch underneath the early red rhododendron used to look wonderful. So where have its seedlings gone? I'm not usually renowned for over-enthusiastically weeding, but I must have destroyed them all.
Sunny Hollyhock
Ultra-Lazy...
Hollyhocks. I've been ultra-lazy, and haven't sown seeds for years. There's one lone perennial survivor, a red behind the glass-house, which hardly ever gets a journal mention. I want some to flower this summer - pinks, reds, singles and doubles. I want whole stands of mature Hollyhocks, rust-free, thanks very much. I want a proper hollyhock experience. And not just the fancy dark coloured designer ones, either.
OK. So I want to do all this NOW, and its still winter, too early to sow seeds, and too late to sow seeds... Hollyhocks and Honesty, I promise I'll try and do better next time around. Whenever that is...