Hollyhocks

I love hollyhocks.  I am not sure when that started to happen in my life.  I don't think hollyhocks were a "thing" in Richland when I grew up.  But I do know some of the things that led it to a bit of an obsession.

When we lived in Hong Kong, we went to Manila, Philippines, for a visit and one of the things we did was visit our friends, the Woods.  They had lived in Hong Kong prior to be transferred to Manila.  Lorna had this beautiful picture on her wall that I immediately fell in love with.  She said that she had seen it first in a temple and then had found the print and had it framed.

Years later, when we returned to the States (and I think it was after we moved to Utah), I did the same thing and also gave one as a gift to my mother-in-law.  If your name is Holly and you love flowers, it seemed like an appropriate gift.  It hangs in several temples that I have been in.

The picture hangs in our upstairs hallway which
makes it a bit tricky to get a good picture.

Some of my early hollyhocks---

These pictures were taken in mid-June when they were just beginning to bloom.

In Cove Fort in central Utah, they have a whole fence lined with hollyhocks.  It is gorgeous and I have been working to have them spread along this fence in our backyard. 

On the subject of flowers, I made a book for my mother-in-law of our visit to the Monet Gardens in France.

In it,  I included some quotes about flowers and two that I like are:
 "Earth laughs in flowers."   Ralph Waldo Emerson
and
"Flowers are the music of the ground.  From earth's lips spoken without sound."  Edwin Curran

Don't you love those quotes.  Flowers add so much to our daily life and remind us how beautiful of a place we live in.

Glad to live in a place where different flowers grow and bloom throughout three seasons of the year.