Hollyhock

Hollyhocks are beautiful flowers and can be started in fall or spring.
Starting your plants in the fall:
-When temperatures are under 60oF, sow your hollyhock seeds directly in the ground
-Sow the seeds in an area with good lighting. Hollyhock is a tall flower, and doesn’t transplant very well, so try to place it along a fence line or in an area where it will not be disturbed for winter. -Ensure the area has good amendments and compost -Soak hollyhock seeds for 12 hours prior to planting -Lightly cover seeds with soil (to prevent them from being eaten by birds) - hollyhock needs light to germinate -Hollyhock will germinate in the spring and, because of the cold, may flower in its first year
Starting your plants in spring:
-If you decide to wait until spring, you can directly sow outdoors or start indoors
-Outdoors, the temperature needs to be around 60-65 degrees for germination
-Indoors, start hollyhock about 9 weeks before the last predicted frost date. Be sure to use individual pots, and peat/biodegradable pots are better, as hollyhock can develop a long taproot
-When starting hollyhock in the spring, it will very likely not flower the first year, unless you force it (we don’t recommend this) -When transplanting outdoors, be sure to play them in a sunny location with fertile soil
Plant maintenance
-Keep the young plants moist. After a few weeks, when their roots are established, the hollyhock plants will need little care -If blooms develop the first growing season, the stalks may need to be staked to prevent them from falling over under the weight of the plant''s full, heavy flowers
-Hollyhock will cross pollinate, so if you save seeds year to year, your flowers will change! To prevent cross pollination you can plant one type of hollyhock at a time
-When saving the seeds, allow the flower to die and the pods to form. You can pluck the pod and allow it to dry out, then break open the pod and harvest your seeds