I called in again today at the Beth Chatto nursery to pick up a plant which I admired yesterday, but held off buying until I'd found out a little about its cultivation requirements and habits. It was an erect member of the mallow family, with slender grey leaves that put me vaguely in mind of Caryopteris, and flowers of a clear pink, about the size of a two pence piece. The bed label with its name on had gone missing, and while I thought it was very pretty, I wondered if it would be a long-lived occupant of the garden, or keep itself going by seeding. Hollyhocks are not the longest lasting plants, and nowadays I'm unwilling either to pay for things, or spend the time planting them, that are likely to disappear forever without trace at the end of the season, or fade away through the course of the next year.
There was a large patch of the mystery charmer in the gravel garden on the way out, and I saw that it was Althaea cannabina. Back home I turned in confidence to Christopher Lloyd's Garden Flowers, but he had nothing to say on the subject, passing straight from Alstromeria to Amaryllis. That was not entirely encouraging, given he had an eye for a good plant (and was a friend of Beth Chatto). His books have a great knack of telling you what you need to know, be it how to propagate something, a warning about its lack of hardiness, or a blistering condemnation of its tediousness for the fifty weeks of the year when it is not in flower. Was his omission of Althaea cannabina a calculated slight on the plant's merits? Or merely that at 384 pages he was running out of space?
The Royal Horticultural Society's Encyclopedia of Perennials was more helpful. Althaea were described as tough, reliable, very colourful and generally trouble-free, which sounded hopeful. There was a physical description of A. cannabina, from which I gathered that the clump in Beth Chatto's dry garden was not reaching its full potential height in those conditions, but the book said nothing about the species' longevity, or whether it would spread by seeding and so keep itself going. It was said to come from northwest Africa and southeast and central Europe, making it sound not necessarily the hardiest thing in the world.
Turning to the internet, Chiltern Seeds (so it could be grown from seed, though whether it would set viable seed in the UK climate or with only one plant remained unclear) described it as follows:
Deserving of a prominent site in the garden is this light and airy plant from the Mediterranean. With 5-lobed, hairy, green leaves, it bears in summer long, waving, flowering stems, many to a plant, each bearing several axilliary clusters of pinkish-lavender blooms with purple-red stamens. Whilst obviously related, no-one is going to mistake this plant for a Hollyhock. One little extra - for those wishing to play with their chemistry sets, this plant yields a useful fibre. 5-6 ft.
A typical Chiltern Seeds catalogue entry, that, with that Yoda-esque sentence inversion, and the snippet of information thrown in about a practical use of the plant. I love the Chiltern Seeds Catalogue, one of the fullest and most idiosyncratic you will find anywhere. I used to eagerly anticipate the annual arrival of their distinctive long, thin book around the New Year, before the information all went on line and I could see what was new any time I wanted. However, they didn't mention whether Althaea cannabina was likely to be a durable inhabitant of my garden.
The BBC Gardeners' World site was another that came up near the top of my search, but their description of Althaea cannabina had a distinct familiarity:
This light and airy plant from the Mediterranean deserves of a prominent site in the garden. It is grown for its attractive, five-lobed, hairy, green leaves and pinkish-lavender blooms with purple-red stamens that appear throughout summer. Whilst obviously related, no-one is going to mistake this plant for a hollyhock.
Now where have I heard those phrases before? Methinks I do not need anti-plagiarism software to detect that somebody is copying someone else. I know which party my money is on.
Wikipedia gave an average height of 40 - 200 centimetres. I am still not sure whether that means anything at all, but it is certainly not informative in the sense of information being that which reduces uncertainty. Or at least, it is not much more useful than being told that a plant is larger than a lawn daisy, but smaller than an oak tree. A nursery I'd never heard of described Althaea cannabina as being easy and incredibly robust. Plant World Seeds, a supplier I have used and found pretty sensible, praised its late flowering season and gave instructions for germinating the seeds but didn't comment on its persistence in the garden.
Finally, Plants for a Future confirmed that it was hardy to zone 4 and not frost tender (I should think not. Zone 4 is pretty damn cold), that it would grow in heavy or light soil, wet or dry, acid or alkaline, was easy to divide, and was self-fertile, meaning that it should set viable seed starting with one plant. The only thing it seemed to resent was shade. Sold to the lady at the back. So today as I was passing by I went and bought one plant. If all goes well I should have more in due course. It is a light and airy thing, and I can imagine it dotted through the island bed in the back garden, along with the Verbena bonariensis. That's a short lived charmer which seeds itself so merrily, at least on my soil, that I always have it.
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