"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them." — A.A. Milne

My garden in Albuquerque

In an article dated July 1963 written for the Garden Club of Taos, Ruth L. Fish writes an interesting history of the Hollyhock, perhaps the favorite summer flower of New Mexico. (Link to the garden club's website and an excerpt from Ms. Fish's article included below).

Apparently mistaken for—or considered even—a weed by some, its persistence in surviving, sometimes in the midst of concrete sidewalks, is testament to its tenacity. Ironically, my own efforts to get hollyhocks started in my garden in Albuquerque took its own persistence. Finally, in year 3 my plants sprang to a height of 6 feet and Bloomed! Ah, sweet mystery of life.

Santa Fe

1930s painting of bees among the Hollyhocks.
Found in East Texas.

New Mexico Randall Davey Audubon Center
Santa Fe, New Mexico

http://www.gardencluboftaos.org/Hollyhocks

"Its genaeological background is long and interesting. Its botanical name is Althea rosea, a genus of the Mallow Family, and a cousin to the exotic hibiscus of the tropics, as well as to the practical okra and cottons of the temperate zones. Its common name derives from Hocys Bengaida, a name given in Wales to the Malva benedictus, "holy mallow" of medieval Latin literature. Wedgewood, an English botanist, says that it was called "holy" because the first of the plants brought to southern Europe came from the Holy Land, to which it had been transplanted from China, its original home. Its characteristic of survival in all climates and soils had caused it to be transplanted to all parts of the civilized world during the Middle Ages, and it is mentioned as "holy-hoke," an adaptation of the Welsh name, in a British horticultural treatise of 1548.

"To the Spanish, the plant was generally known as Las Varas de San Jose, "rods (or staffs) of St. Joseph," and as such it was pictured in many early paintings of St. Joseph in southern Europe, its quality of enduring all manner of circumstances in all climates and soils typifying God's love and mercy for mankind. In this way, it came to have a very special meaning for our Spanish colonists who brought the seed from the Mother Country in the earliest years of settlement. The Spanish people have ever been lovers of flowers, and even in arid New Mexico, the doñas and their gardeners soon had flowers lining their portales and bordering their adobe walls. The hollyhocks survived when many more tender plants could not abide the rigors of late spring and early autumn frosts, burning noon-day sun, and persistent drought; and so they became the favorites; seed was shared; and soon, as one of my aged neighbors has said, 'Everyone had hollyhocks.'" — Ruth L. Fish, July 1963