Hollyhocks

January is one of the best gardening months. It's the season when seed catalogs arrive and when the cold outside keeps you indoors browsing garden photos and online plant suppliers. Everything in January looks so good, pictures and diagrams and carefully selected shots are always botanical perfection. Fantasy gardening.

I am easily seduced. And so, in this cold Santa Fe January I have succumbed to inducements and in my plant order for spring are hollyhocks. Alcea ficifolia -- figleaf hollyhock.

Like roses, hollyhocks seem to be flowery Old World cottage garden flowers that don't belong in the arid southwest, but, like roses, hollyhocks thrive here. It's the dry.

Hollyhocks are legendary for developing a rust fungus that disfigures the leaves and makes them tattered, ugly garden plants even though the tall flowery spires are glorious. But in this very dry climate rust is less of a problem, although it still exists.

And the cultivar I ordered, a multi-colored one called 'Las Vegas', is rust resistant. I think it's an indication of suitability to our climate if a plant is named Las Vegas. It must grow well out here. You know there is a Las Vegas in New Mexico too, right? Check out this post. I like to think this plant was named for our quaint town of Las Vegas, not the metropolis in Nevada.

The ficifolia variety has leaves that look like fig leaves.

'Las Vegas' is supposed to bloom in a variety of colors, but of course it all depends on what each seed becomes. They may all turn out to be yellow or just a couple shades, and not a full mix of pinks, reds, magentas, dark plums, whites and yellows. I hope I get a good mix, but there's no guarantee.

Hollyhocks are huge, up to 6 feet tall, and very showy. I'll grow mine along the coyote fence in that sunny spot next to Big Red the Rainbarrel. There the tall stalks may be protected from winds (I hope) and have something to lean on. You'll see the big tall flowers but won't see much of the foliage since other things will be in front of them as this garden under the aspens fills in.

They are so big and flashy, and from what I have seen around here they grow so easily, that I think they'll make a nice show along that fence. You'll see them from the street, and they will punch up what is a shady, quiet, reserved bit of garden under the dining room windows.

It's all a perfect vision in winter. No tattered foliage, no fallen-over stalks, just pretty hollyhocks in every possible color standing tall in a spot of sun by the fence. I love fantasy gardening in January.