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How to tame a Hollyhock!
Orchid Lady
Posts: 5,800
I have 2 Hollyhocks that have reappeared this year (I grew them last year from free seeds not knowing what they were or that they were perennial!!)
They are in the wrong place and I haven't staked them so one of them has spread everywhere and just looks a mess!! If I cut it back will it grow again and also will it still flower but on shorter stems?
I will probably dig it up and move it when it has finished flowering but for now don't want it get rid of it altogether.
Any suggestions welcome 
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I think that the best you can do is to stake them this year, and then take some seeds from them and grow them on into new plants. Mature hollyhocks don't take well to transplanting, in my experience.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Fab
Seeds and growing new ones (if I want them) it is then, to be honest I don't even remember sowing them, note to self - do more research in what I'm growing in future. Thank you ladies 
Oh, yes indeed.....saw some enormous specimens the other day growing out of the tarmac pavement outside a row of terraced houses.
OL, see them as weeds.
David, I've been looking closely at hollyhocks - it seems to me that hollyhocks growing in sites like the ones you mention, cracks in tarmac etc, are healthy rust free hollyhocks, whereas those in soil beds contract rust and deteriorate quite quickly.
Putting my thinking cap on I surmise that the rust spores probably get washed away from tarmac, concrete etc in heavy rain, whereas those that fall on soil remain there to reinfect the hollyhock.
What do you and others think?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Got plenty here
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
They do look pretty but yes David, at the moment it is a weed because I don't really want this great big sprawling plant covering up my Camelia, Day Lillies and Rhoddie
I love hollyhocks, they remind me of mu childhood - sorry to all you who think they are weeds. In my limited experience although they are perennial, the best way to keep them year on year is by letting them self seed, and they are often different colours as well. I just leave the flowers to dry our and then shake the seeds where I want them. They do grow prolifically but I just pull up the ones I don't want.
I have Hollyhocks seeding everywhere and last year we noticed them growing in a small space between the house and patio. We left them because it reminded us of a holiday last year in the Ile de Rieu in France where they grown on in the gaps. However if they do damage I will take them up. They are about 8 ft tall and just flowering!
It turns out that my Hollyhock isn't actually Hollyhock and is in fact Lavatera (Mallow)