Photo Essay: Volunteer Hollyhocks Make a Pink Splash

Checking In... I'm Still Here!

I’m checking in today to say I’m still here… We finally got the last of my stuff out of my old apartment yesterday. The only thing left is my garden plants, most of which I am passing along to a friend. I love to garden, but gardening here at my new place is not optimal, primarily because there’s no access to water save for a watering can. So for now I will stick with some potted plants outside my door in my little seating area.

In lieu of a new post today, I am reprising this post from early August 2023, when I had less than 50 readers. I’ve added in some more photos to upgrade the post as well. As I am now phasing out of gardening again, I thought it would be nice to bring this post back around to look back on the beginnings of the gardens I had at my old apartment I just moved from.

Settling in to my new place is going well. I will be writing more on that soon… When I dig out from under the boxes!

I hope you all enjoy reading this post below…

August 2, 2023

I haven’t seen the Barbie movie yet, but I do plan on seeing it. I’m just not one for going to the movies. I typically wait until I can watch movies at home. That said this isn’t a post about the Barbie movie, it’s a post about pink flowers, particularly pink hollyhocks growing in one of my flower beds.

Here’s the thing about gardening for me, I love to plant seeds and flowers but I really don’t like to weed. When I started my pandemic gardens in 2020 it was something to keep me occupied at home when we were all under lockdown. Every spring and summer since then I dd some new perennials and plant some sunflower and zinnia seeds. The sunflowers and zinnias were a big hit with the birds in my yard in the first year of my gardens.

Last summer as the sunflower and zinnia seeds I planted started coming up in my different garden beds, a strange plant popped up that had wide leaves that looked a bit like squash or maybe pumpkins, I thought. Unsure of what it was, couple with me dislike of weeding meant that that plant stayed in the garden last summer. This spring as I was clearing out my flower beds I noticed the plant with the wide leaves was back and I was ever so curious.

As the plant got larger I kept wondering what on earth it was. And then I realized that it looked like a plant I hadn’t seen a very long time, a hollyhock. My mom grew beautiful hollyhocks. I always loved them. I looked up hollyhock on Google and found my suspicion was correct, I had a volunteer hollyhock growing my garden. If you’ve never heard that term “volunteer” used in terms of gardening, it is when a plant mysteriously appears in your garden, most likely from seeds dropped by birds or blown in the wind.

I’m pretty happy with my beautiful splash of pink hollyhocks in my bed of spearmint and daylilies.

I know that I won’t have any hollyhocks next year because they are biennials and I am content to wait another two years for them to bloom again and I hope that the flowers I have this year will further seed the flower bed and I will have an even bigger splash of pink in my garden in two years.

Tell me, what is growing in your flower beds? And do you like weeding? These are heady questions in today’s world.

Gardens are a wonderful distraction from all the troubles of world and our own lives. Gardening is a healthy hobby and great exercise. Gardening, even growing flowers in a planter, helps to put us in touch with nature. Nature is the force of life. Nature is a balm that we all need. I hope you garden and if you don’t, I hope you stop and smell or admire the flowers.

Stay tuned for new posts… I hope you might share this post on Notes and your Socials, and perhaps you will refer a friend.

The comments are open as always. Leave a comment, strike up a discussion, talk among yourselves, be part of this community.

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This community is everything to me, I appreciate you all so much — my readers and my Substack friends! 💚

I’m wishing you all a blessed and beautiful day today. 💚

Remember to breathe when things get stressful and as always, be kind to one another. Kindness is everything. 💚

And remember, as I always say, “Be in the moment and go with the flow.” 💚

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