Maybe you water too much.

Hi - I was told they don't bloom til the second year.
Maybe too much water also. Good luck - tina_2

I garden in central Texas and treasure my hollyhocks. I know that they gain rust as the season progresses and are not true perennials, so I treat them as annuals. I sow saved seed each year between Halloween and Thanksgiving. The small plants get plenty of time to put down roots over the winter. As soon as the weather gets over 50, they begin to grow...by 65 deg, I usually have blooms regardless of watering. I grow them in a meadow setting, little water, clay soil and big rocks.

I have found that the newer species and hybrids have not thrived. For instance, black blooming hybrids have been plants in the flowerbed or 2 years and not progressed beyond 3 inches high. Give me those old-fashioned everytime!

I plant mine in a flower pot and place in the shade so they will stay evenly damp. They are low on germination so you must plant about 15 seed. Once you move the 3 inch plants to a hot dry spot, do not over water. They form woody roots which rot easily. HP in VA

Morningglo,

I grew some hollyhocks successfully in Miami, and am certain that you can grow them if I could.

First of all, I grew an heirloom variety from a Burpee seed packet.

They were planted in an area that received a good amount of summer sun, but shade in the winter. (This is because in summer while the sun was higher, it shined above my back neighbor's tall palm trees and into my little garden. In the winter when the sun was lower, it would cast shade from behind dense palm hedge into my garden.)

Before I planted anything in that small garden, I had worked the soil about two feet deep, removing every rock, root, and piece of junk I found while simultaneously amending with manure, bonemeal, and bloodmeal until the soil was a healthy soft black consistency. My soil was an alkaline sandy loam.

I planted the seeds in spring, when the garden would begin to get more sun, directly into the soil along the picket fence (which I planned on tying them to).

I watered whenever the soil looked dry with a watering can that would shower the water, so that the seed would not get exposed and be washed away.

They sprouted quickly (in a matter of days), and then I occasionally gave them MiracleGro for flowers every couple of weeks -- (of course I never fertilized while the soil was dry).

The seedlings quickly grew in to rosettes of rough, heart-shaped leaves that were very nice to look at. Some clumps were more robust than others.

I think it was between 6 to 8 weeks after planting when I noticed a thick stem rising from a rosette, and figured YAY! My first flower!

After some rain, the stem quickly shot out of the ground and was taller than me (I'm about 5'6''). Around this time, the same was happening with several others.

When the flowers began opening, they were al a very soft pink, which I thought was interesting considering the picture on the seed pack didn't show and flowers of that color.

Out of laziness, I never tied the stems to the fence, so they snapped after a thunderstorm. I cut it and brought it inside, but it didn't work too well as a cut flower.

They had no problems with rust, disease, or beetles; but occasionally got some aphids or spider mites under the leaves (which was easy to take care of).

They grew like annuals, and not all of them flowered. I concluded that within the strain, some were and were not suitable for a subtropical climate. One thing I can honestly say is that they love water and sun. So much so that when I tried planting them as a cool-season annual in my old mild, dry, frost-free winter, they barely grew and didn't flower. This was also because of the winter shade that I mentioned my garden receiving from the back neighbor's palms.

I hope this helps, and good luck with your next try!