Sunday, June 17, 2012

Hollyhocks are blooming by Desiree

With the garden tour finished and finally home from vacation we are able to just enjoy the garden. Everything is in bloom and I am overwhelmed with painting and sketching inspiration. I belong to an international postcard exchange group and we send each other a monthly sketch of something we have sketched while exercising or walking. Gardening definitely qualifies as exercise so I thought I would send a sketch of my hollyhocks to Liz in Australia. I planted them last year and they are finally blooming. They must be 7' tall and bloom all the way up their stocks with these huge double blooms, resembling peonies. The flowers start at the bottom of the stock and then move up, blooming as they go, the stocks continue to get taller as the flowers advance. This is causing the stocks to now lean from the weight of the flowers now approaching the top third of the stock.  Hollyhocks are definitely an old fashion cottage/english garden flower yet I still love them. As do the snails. The bottom leaves are completely skeletonized, leaving nothing more than some veins.

7 comments:

  1. Wow-Kaaaa. What an eye grabber! Gorgeous!

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  2. I love paintings of summer flowers and these just jump right out of the page!

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  3. My hollyhocks are the same - the leaves have been eaten to pieces! Mine are this deep pink, also. Love the painting.

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  4. They are BEAUTIFUL. I've never had luck planting them, so I'll just enjoy yours!

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  5. These remind me of my grandmother's garden. When I was a kid we would pull off a blossom, turn it upside-down (for the skirt) and, with a pin, attached a bud to the top as a head and voila! a doll. Didn't take much to entertain us back then. Lovely sketch Desiree.

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  6. Gorgeous hollyhocks. Laura x

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