Hollyhocks

I have an addiction to hollyhocks. I think they are the most beautiful flower. Lush, odd, spiky, old fashioned. The flowers look like something you could set up house in and be quite comfortable, if you were a mini person. You can eat them. I haven't tried, but I will. I expect them to taste bland, but we shall see. Tomorrow I am going to take the plunge and ingest one. I may even take a few pics. That is how I ended up in this tiny town. Hollyhocks. I saw some growing by the side of my yellow brick house, poking up through the huge ferns, beckoning me to buy this money pit with my husband. It looked like a house in England that I had visited. If I wasn't a sucker for hollyhocks, I would be living the high life in a city. I long for public transit, homeless people. . . what ever happened to Crazy Mary who yelled at the pedestrians at Dundas and Richmond. There was another woman who pushed around a shopping cart. . . .she almost looked normal from a distance, and then upon closer inspection, her lips were a gash of red lipstick and with her white hair and pinhole eyes she would startle you. Out of nowhere she would start yelling or having an oration in the middle of the sidewalk. Or the professor. . .he was another really neat character. In the suburbs of Oakridge there was an actual man living in a Goodwill Donation Box. This year, I am disappointed in my hollyhock crop. My black ones did pop up, and I have a very nice coral one. Oodles of pinks and almost a red. I love my malva and my other mallows as well. I just wish I could make them look better from the road. I seem to plant in a disorganized fashion. I need a professional garden organizer, who can tell me what to plop and where. My hibiscus flowers are budding, I can't wait for them to pop. Last year the flowers were as big as my face. It seems that the weather has not been kind to my hollyhocks, most of them blew over in the wretched storms that we had, and with the summer heat, they seem to be at mid fall stage already. Then again, I have heard the flocks of birds in the trees, and again it just seems to premature. Soon the kidlets will be back in school and the leaves will be falling and I will be left staring at the skeletons of trees. Tree bones and mushy pumpkins.