A Bucket of Beautiful Hollyhocks

When your husband goes to the farm stand and brings home a bucket full of fresh clipped hollyhocks, you take all the photos and enjoy all the beauty.

Bucket of Hollyhocks 

If you love cottage gardens, you probably are already in love with hollyhocks. Those tall trumpet style blooms that dance in the wind and bring an abundance of old fashioned cottage garden charm. 

Hollyhocks mingle with roses, hydrangeas and all the cottage garden favorites- and they take center stage simply by being tall and covered in beautiful flowers. They come in several varieties and colors, and in our garden, we have the traditional mix and mingle that comes in a flower seed packet. 

While we get a few lovely blooms in the garden beds, finding an armful of them at the farm stand was a treat. I quickly plopped them into a vintage bucket and got ready to style a simple table as it was being set up for a few photos. 

Simplicity

The simplicity of a single type of flower in an arrangement is just as beautiful as a carefully created curated floral. I often actually prefer single flower type arrangements, especially when in a big old bucket. 

For this table, the flowers, a few candles and dainty vintage glasses were perfect. I brought out an old tablecloth first, and simply started to arrange some of the elements on the table to create a summer table ‘mood’. I intended to set the whole table and do a whole photo shoot here, but decided that the ‘magic in the making’ was just what this setting needed. 

Things to note: 

Hollyhocks can be irritating to the skin, so wear gloves when handling them. I ended up with a red rash on my arms the first time I clipped and carried them inside. 

Hollyhocks are one of those flowers that wilts easily after cutting. They are so beautiful but you do have to take care to keep them looking that way. These started wilting almost immediately as you can see in some of the photos. The same way you would keep the stem open on a hydrangea works – simply dip the fresh cut stem in boiling water and then put into the vase. I tried all the things and recut the wilty blooms several times and only a few didn’t seem to respond to the boiling water trick.

Enjoy those flowers in arrangements big and small. A couple tall blooms in a shorter arrangement are perfect. Have a small one that broke? No problem to tuck that one into a dainty arrangement too. The key is to simply enjoy all the beauty that hollyhocks brings however you style them. 

Like for a happy little candlelight moment under the stars.

f you love all things flower filled like I do- you might love my latest book FRENCH COUNTRY COTTAGE IN BLOOM- on sale here for just $23 right now.

Happy Friday friends.