Hollyhock seeds (Alcea rosea)

Alcea rosea

Also known as hollyhock, rose mallow, or garden mallow, the hollyhock is a familiar sight in country gardens, where it readily climbs along walls and fences. Rural tradition often planted it near exterior doors, so in some regions it has remained the emblematic flower of old-fashioned farm gardens.

Characteristics:

• Vertical silhouette: its tall, hairy stems, which can exceed 2 metres, make it ideal for dressing up an unsightly wall or fence.
• Generous flowering: its large single or double flowers, 5 to 10 cm across, appear successively from June to September in a variety of colours.
• Hardy: it survives the winter without difficulty in most regions.

Sowing advice:

• Position: full sun to partial shade, ideally planted against a wall that protects it from the wind and reflects heat back to it.
• Soil: ordinary, deep and well-drained. It tolerates chalky and poor soils, but dislikes stagnant moisture in winter, which can cause the crown to rot.
• Method: the seeds require cold stratification to germinate well — see our guide to cold stratification. Then sow directly outdoors in spring, as its long taproot does not tolerate transplanting well. Pre-soaking is not necessary.

Care advice:

• Water regularly during dry periods, without excess to prevent the soil from becoming waterlogged.
• Light staking may be useful for the tallest stems, which are exposed to the wind.
• Cut back the stems after flowering, or leave a few to set seed for natural reseeding.

Benefits for biodiversity:

• Its flowers, rich in nectar and pollen, attract abundant numbers of bees and bumblebees throughout the summer.
• Like other mallows, it is a host plant for certain butterfly caterpillars, notably painted ladies, which lay their eggs and feed there. See our article on flowers in the vegetable garden.

Uses:

• Hollyhock flowers are edible, enjoyed raw in salads or dried to flavour an infusion. See our ideas for edible flowers.

Harvesting your own seeds:
Leave the small, millstone-shaped brown capsules to dry on the stem, then remove the seeds by hand: each capsule contains numerous flat seeds arranged in a circle. Hollyhocks readily self-seed from one season to the next. See saving your seeds from one year to the next.

Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, without any chemical treatment. Our conviction: to give gardeners back the ability to sow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.

Add a touch of country charm to your garden with these hollyhock seeds, available now.