When to sow hollyhocks in Qingdao

Why these dates

Sow in early summer, six weeks after the last frost, and move the young plants to their final position in autumn against a sheltered wall - they need the support and the reflected warmth. Flowering follows the next July. Cut the spike down after flowering and it often behaves as a short-lived perennial.

Hardy to about -25C over winter as a crown. Wind, not cold, is what breaks it, and a plant in the open without a wall behind it rarely reaches its full height intact.

Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Hollyhocks are timed with planting out 20 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Qingdao.

Hardiness is not the obstacle here. Qingdao is zone 9a, comfortably inside the range this crop is rated for, so an established plant should come through an average winter without protection.

This is a two-season crop, so the dates above describe a sowing in one year and a flowering in the next. The plant spends the winter in the ground as a small rosette, which is why the frost-free season in Qingdao does not limit it the way it would limit a tomato: it is not trying to finish before the cold arrives, it is trying to be well enough rooted to sit through it. Sowing too late is the real risk, because a plant that goes into winter undersized often fails to flower at all the following year.

See every crop timed for Qingdao →