I started hollyhocks from seed this spring. The winter was long and hard and I was still recovering from surgery. I felt the need to push new seeds into fresh potting soil, to actively be involved in helping something grow and flourish. Sowing seeds gave me new hope – the kind you feel when the sun melts the last of the dirty snow into puddles and warm air signals the dormant earth to awaken after a long winter’s rest.
I was hopeful, too, that I would physically grow stronger. I know I felt spiritually stronger as I sorted through the seed packets. Starting seeds indoors would give the children the same hope, as we anticipated the warmer weather together.
I thumbed through the box of seeds, some purchased for last year’s garden that never materialized. I pulled out a packet of hollyhocks, and sighed. I had wanted to grow hollyhocks for a long time. I remembered a white picket fence not too far from our farm that was crowded with tall stalks of old-fashioned hollyhocks. They bloomed in every shade of hollyhock flower imaginable: white, yellow, peach, pink, fusia, burgundy, purple, and black. The stalks spilled over the fence and into the sidewalk. I felt pure joy when I gazed on that living palette of color. Why hadn’t I planted my own hollyhocks years ago?
I rearranged the kitchen and turned it into a mini greenhouse. In the morning, sunlight floods the window facing to the east, so I pushed the enamel-topped table that was under it, next to the wall, and pulled the large butcher block with its numerous shelves in front of the window. I sowed seeds for a variety of different herbs and flowers, and even though I thought I had a head start on the planting season, it was late in comparison to more eager gardeners then I. Northern Illinois was still seven weeks from the late frost date of May 21st, but the stores had already sold out of seed starter kits. I ended up buying three peat pot kits with plastic domes. That’s all that was left.
After watering and nurturing my seeds for a few weeks, I witnessed the miracle of tender seedlings pushing up through the potting soil mix. Often, the cracked opened seed would sit like a little hat on the immerging seedlings. I determined right then and there that I would plant my garden with childish abandon and spend as much time in it as I possibly could this summer.
Most of the seeds sprouted, but after they were transplanted few failed to thrive. The peat didn’t break down fast enough in the soil, and no matter how much I watered, they still dried out before the roots became established. I had sowed my hollyhock seeds in three-inch plastic pots, however, because I ran out of room in the other trays. They flourished and were transplanted in the garden by the fourth of July. I knew that I would have to wait a whole year before the flowers bloomed, but at least I finally got them in the ground.
In Sharon Lovejoy’s book, Hollyhock Days, the author quotes her grandmother as saying, “Hollyhocks need the companionship of humans.” I think that describes my attraction to hollyhocks. I’ve come to need the companionship of hollyhocks, their cheerful faces and dainty summer dresses, and the gardens they grow in, as well!
My blog is dedicated to My Great Aunt Mae. In 1946, she self-published a book of poetry entitled Through the Windowpane. On the cover there is a simple illustration of a windowpane surrounded by hollyhocks. I never really knew why that picture meant so much to me until this summer. Because of the research I did for my book, gleaning what I could from my ancestor’s writings, I have made a stronger connection with my Great Aunt through her poetry and my Mother through her memoirs. Somehow hollyhocks are symbolic of that connection, representing old-fashioned companionship – the camaraderie that a new generation feels when they find their family identity expressed in an older relative’s life stories. It’s the company of children eagerly anticipating the creative process, seeing how ideas grow and flourish and are then nurtured into reality on crisp new journal pages or computer screens. It’s the communion of hearts and minds through sentences, phrases, and words.…
Elizabeth’s Journal Entry
My hollyhocks won’t bloom until next year, but my son, Eric, brought me a stalk from our neighbor’s farm the other day when he went fishing there. “Take as many as you want.” Donna said. She’s an artist and a writer. She understands. Elizabeth (age 11) and I drew flowers and seed pods to our heart’s content, and something wonderful happened. She fell in love with drawing hollyhocks…and so did I. There are some flowers that just seem to flow out of the tip of your pencil, almost drawing them selves, and hollyhocks are one of them.
I planted all of my hollyhock seedlings underneath the windows sills of our little white house. As we look through the windowpanes next summer, their old-fashioned companionship will remind us of those who have gone before us, sowing seeds of hope from the tips of their pens. And as I press my pen to paper, I too, will plant seeds of hope for my children and grandchildren yet to be born. Who knows, someday they may need a little old-fashioned companionship from a distant relative who cared enough to plant a colorful garden of words and pictures in her journal, and nourished it with childish abandon.
Copyright 2006 by Jill Novak
