Alcea rosea Halo Cream - Hollyhock

Alcea 'Halo Cream', a newcomer in the series of Halo hollyhocks, offers bicoloured flowers with an unprecedented colour. Not really cream, but rather an icy yellow at the opening, its large cup-shaped flowers fade to cream and are painted with a yellow halo around a beautiful cassis-coloured heart. It is more perennial than usual varieties, and its foliage resists rust better. In two years, each plant produces a bushy clump from which 5 to 10 tall stems loaded with flowers emerge. This plant is irreplaceable in country gardens or slightly neglected gardens. It does not need watering once established and often self-seeds in unexpected places.

Alcea rosea belongs to the Malvaceae family. It is native to Asia Minor and is often naturalised in wild gardens, fallow lands, and on mounds of earth. The result of 15 years of work, 'Halo Cream' is part of a series of hybrids selected by the famous seed company Thompson & Morgan for their large single and bicoloured flowers, bushy habit, ability to produce multiple flower stems on the same plant, and rust resistance.

It is an upright plant, usually unbranched, which can reach 1.5 to 2m (5 to 7ft) in height. It forms a branched rosette of rounded and puckered leaves from which several robust flower stems emerge, whose growth is very rapid. These spike-like inflorescences are covered with numerous large buds that open in a staggered fashion from June to August. They bloom from bottom to top, into large single flowers measuring 10cm (4in) in diameter. Their crumpled and translucent texture creates beautiful plays of light. Throughout this period, they will attract bees and butterflies to your garden. The flowering gives way to many fruits filled with seeds that spontaneously self-seed in unexpected areas: at the foot of walls, in poor and stony soils, and crevices in walls.

Very common in abandoned gardens or fallow land in our countryside, hollyhocks are often grown at the back of borders or against a wall that protects it from strong winds. This lovely selection 'Halo Cream' will create stunning combinations with purple, mauve, or white forms, both single and double. Plant or sow it with annuals such as nigella, bidens, centaurea, cosmos, poppies, and Delphinium consolida. Gaura, with their light flowering like a flight of butterflies, will also form a beautiful contrast with their stems loaded with large flowers. Hollyhock is an edible plant; the floral buds can be consumed raw in salads and the young leaves are eaten raw or cooked.

It is both ornamental and medicinal. Oil with drying properties is obtained from its seeds. Rich in mucilage, it has soothing, emollient, expectorant, laxative, and appetising properties, albeit attenuated compared to those of its cousin, Althea officinalis.