Oh ye of little faith

I'm not referring to you, dear reader, but to myself...


I bought a plant from the market a couple of months ago that had no label on.  I recognised it as a hollyhock and the stall holder told me it would have black flowers.  I'm always dubious about claims of black flowers because they're usually very dark red or purple; the same with claims of blue roses that are actually lilac.  So imagine my joy when it blossomed into this!

It hasn't got double flowers but I'm really pleased with it.




I planted it in a bed that you may remember looked like this in April


and now it's like this with the hollyhock at the back (the pond is just the same though)

I sowed it with annuals but the only ones to survive were the sunflowers and zinnias.  In fact I sowed the zinnias twice and they didn't do anything so a sowed some more indoors of which I got 12.  The poppys were self seeded and  the marigolds I moved from another part of the garden where they had self seeded.  There is also the ubiquitous red orache!
Sod's law that some the orangey yellow zinnias ended up next to the marigolds so they don't show up.  Like here (marigold on top left)

and here (zinnia at the back of the group)

You can just see a couple of Ruby Chard plants behind with the red stems




Oh you know that shirt I altered for my husband?  He wore it today for the first time and didn't say anything about the pocket so he must think it's alright.  
I haven't mentioned that I put it on, because I don't want to draw his attention to it though.