Add old fashioned charm to your garden with hollyhocks (Alcea rosea). These stately and edible flowers grow up to seven feet tall in shades of red, pink, yellow and white. Technically biennial (growing leaves the first season, flowering the next summer, setting seed then dying), hollyhocks can be coaxed to flower a few more seasons if stopped from going to seed. The down side to growing hollyhocks is the potential for their leaves to look tattered from rust disease and weevil holes. Never mind – just plant them at the back of the boarder where only their flowers will show.
Here is a source for hollyhock seeds in single colors, plus growing information, pictures, history and lore.