Alcea ficifolia

The Alcea ficifolia, also known as the Fig-leaved Hollyhock, is a perennial plant that is short-lived but hardy, offering a colourful summer flowering. It produces long flower stalks with numerous crepe-like flowers in shades of yellow, red, pink, purple, or white. These flowers charm with their lightness and somewhat naive blooming, adding elegance to the back of borders or when covering the walls of a enclosed garden. They tolerate poor and rocky soils, are drought-resistant, and prefer sunny locations.

The Alcea ficifolia, the Fig-leaved Hollyhock, native to Siberia, belongs to the mallow family. It is a vigorous and robust perennial with rounded leaves that are distinctly and deeply lobed, rough to the touch, truly resembling the leaves of the southern tree. It produces single flowers in a wide variety of colours. The foliage is healthy, fairly light green, and resistant to diseases. From June to August-September, it produces sturdy stems, reaching heights of 1.80 m (6ft) to 2.20 m (7ft), covered in round flowers with a crinkled and slightly translucent texture reminiscent of silk muslin. Throughout this period, they will attract bees and butterflies to your garden. The flowering is followed by numerous fruits filled with seeds that self-sow in unexpected areas, seemingly chosen by the plants themselves: at the base of walls, in poor and rocky soils, in wall crevices, etc.

Widely found in abandoned gardens or fallow fields in rural areas, the Fig-leaved Hollyhock is often grown at the back of borders or against a wall to protect it from strong winds. The various colours of the Alcea ficifolia allow for beautiful combinations with light-flowering perennials such as gauras, perennial flax, paniculate gypsophila, or the grey foliage of mugworts that have the same requirements. This plant is said to tolerate juglone, a substance secreted by walnut roots: it could be planted at the base of a walnut tree, as long as there is sufficient light. The Fig-leaved Hollyhock is an edible plant, with its floral buds being consumed raw in salads and its young leaves eaten raw or cooked.

Good to know: The Fig-leaved Hollyhock has both ornamental and medicinal properties. Its seeds are used to extract an oil with drying properties. Rich in mucilage, it has soothing, emollient, expectorant, laxative, and appetizing properties, although milder compared to those of its cousin, the Marshmallow (Althea officinalis), as used by herbalists.