A Hollyhock

I'm assuming everyone has a nostalgic flower that reminds them of their childhood and hollyhocks are mine. I've probably mentioned before (writing a blog on one subject for seven years it is hard not to repeat yourself) that when I was in kindergarten we lived at a lake in Michigan and hollyhocks grew wild there. We used to pull them apart and make hollyhock dolls out of them. Today when I see them growing all over SJC in the Mission and Old Town, I want to plant some because they grow so easily from seed, but I usually forget until it is too late. This year I actually bought a couple flats of three inch pots that I spotted in a nursery in the spring when I was there for something else. I brought them home and had my helper plant them. I put a flat of white ones in the Moonlight Garden and a flat of violet ones in the perennial garden. The ones in the Moonlight Garden have disappeared. I'm sure they are very tasty to hungry rabbits now that I think about it. A few of the ones in the perennial garden have survived and are blooming, but they are white! I probably should have been more specific about making sure they were planted along a fence or wall out of the way of dogs wandering through the beds sniffing down, well, whatever. And those that have survived are, of course, besieged with rust and mildew, the nemesis of the hollyhock. Some hollyhocks are annuals, some are biannuals and some are listed as perennials, and as we all know, that means little in Southern California where plants just do whatever they want as far as coming and going ( I still have pansies blooming from last fall) so I will try again. This time from seeds, in an out-of-the-way bed along a wall, away from where the bunnies roam. Doesn't it drive you crazy when you see plants growing in ditches that you can't get to grow in your own back yard?