Alcea rosea Chaters Double salmon - Hollyhock

The Alcea rosea Chater's Double Salmon is a truly romantic variety of hollyhock with its immense floral spikes adorned with very double pompom flowers in a soft and warm salmon pink colour. They bloom throughout the summer and are arranged on stems often exceeding 2m (7ft) in height. This perennial plant, often grown as a biennial, is emblematic of English cottage gardens and is wonderful at the back of borders or to cover the walls of an enclosed garden. It tolerates poor and rocky soils, is drought resistant, and prefers warm and sheltered locations.

The hollyhock is also known by its Latin name, Althaea rosea, and its vernacular names adopt all the accents of our regions: it is called Passe-rose, Rose à bâton, Rose papale, or primerose. From the mallow family, it originates from Asia Minor and is often naturalized in slightly wild gardens, fallow fields, and mounds of earth.

Chater's Double Salmon Hollyhock is a variety with very double flowers derived from this wild plant. It is an upright, usually unbranched plant that can reach a height of 2m (7ft) to 2.5m (8ft). It forms a rosette of rounded leaves with 5 or 7 lobes, from which a robust flower stalk emerges, growing very rapidly. These spike inflorescences are covered with large buds that open, staggered from June-July to August-September, from the bottom to the top, into large ephemeral double corolla flowers whose texture wonderfully reflects the light. They display a delightful hue, and their undulations seem woven from crepe. Throughout this period, they will attract bees and butterflies to your garden. The flowering gives way to numerous fruits filled with seeds that self-sow in the most unexpected areas, which it chooses itself: at the base of walls, in poor and rocky soils, in wall crevices, etc.

Widespread in abandoned gardens or fallow fields in the countryside, the hollyhock is often grown at the back of borders or against a wall that protects it from strong winds. The pastel pompoms of this variety can be paired with dark (purple-black, chestnut brown) or light (soft yellow, orange, white) forms, single or double, yarrow, buglosses, Orangeade or Summer Sunset agastaches, against a wall or leaning against a conifer hedge. This plant is said to tolerate juglone, a substance secreted by walnut roots: you could try planting it at the base of this tree, provided there is enough light. The hollyhock is an edible plant, the floral buds can be eaten raw in salads and the young leaves raw or cooked.

The hollyhock is both ornamental and medicinal. Its seeds yield an oil with drying properties. Rich in mucilage, it has soothing, emollient, expectorant, laxative, and appetizing properties, albeit less pronounced than those of its cousin, the Marshmallow (Althea officinalis) used by herbalists.