In the late evening glimmer of a falling June sun, I sat with my thumbs tucked under my chin and watched a hummingbird dash between a feeder under a backyard pine to a stand of deep red hollyhocks that grow on a hillside near our barn.
The birds have always fascinated me, but my life with them came when we first moved to this house. The flowers, however, are a thing from the distant past. I have not outgrown hollyhocks, nor do I wish to.
Earlier this spring I was scrounging through the odds and ends of an unintentional collection on a garage shelf. Nestled among the unmatched gloves, the cans of forgotten paint and a few old garden tools sat a rusting coffee can, the homely reposit of a sack labeled with my mom’s elegant handwriting. “Phyllis’ hollyhock seeds,” it read.
Smiling, I took the seeds to a then-bare spot of soil on the hillside I’ve gradually carved from our woods, dropped them into the red-brown dirt as if sowing grass, sloshed a half-can of water across the work, and walked away.
Within a few weeks I could see the pale green fans of the tiny plants grabbing the air for sunlight. Phyllis, one of Mom’s oldest and dearest friends, has been gone for years now, but part of her is still alive and reaching out of the soil.
The hollyhock has never been a highly respected flower. Its long, slender stems came in handy over the years to help hide outhouses and henhouses, junked cars and trash pits. Hollyhocks were easy to grow, but easier to neglect. Most often, they are biennial, planted one year to flower the next.
Although I neatly trim around my gangs of plants, I have rarely planted or replanted our hollyhocks. Our best stands simply appeared where I had thrown the splotched and bug-eaten carcasses I had cut out of a front-yard flowerbed. Their accidental beauty is a testament to the persistence of nature.
From what I’ve read, hollyhocks (scientific name Athaea rosea) first came to America from China and were once eaten as a pot herb. Its flowers still are used by some as medicines, specifically for chest complaints. Hollyhocks also are used for making dyes, their blooms gathered in July or August and dried in thin layers on trays in the sun.
I suppose that I most remember the pink and crimson blooms growing in my Grandma Blanche’s flower garden. She always sprinkled hollyhocks among her rhubarb and irises, and often I wandered in bare feet to her back step and caught her leaning amid her flowers pulling weeds and snipping blooms. She wasn’t very tall and her head would pop up amidst the hollyhocks, her reddened, chubby face framed in the color of the flowers, not unlike a painting I once saw at T.C. Steele’s House of the Singing Winds near Nashville.
Despite the apparent lack of respect, the hollyhock has been cultivated. A good many varieties exist, among them a mixture of white, red, pink and yellow blooms called Indian Spring. Other variations are called Summer Carnival and Rugosa; I have no idea what our hollyhocks are called.
My wife has spent a life with hollyhocks, too. Her Grandma Ruth first showed her how to make hollyhock dolls from the flowers when she was a girl still wearing cowboy boots and horn-rimmed glasses and missing a few front teeth. The dolls were intricate sculptures that sat alongside other dolls made of corn tassels and that art was proof that often the most treasured playthings are short-lived but long remembered. My children can claim that in a digital age of special effects and computer animation, they saw their mother sitting at our old oak kitchen table carefully folding and wrapping hollyhock blooms into frail families that lasted just a day or two.
I am confident that someday my wife will get a book about her grandmother and those flowers into print. I am as equally confident that we are headed to a time when the things of the past, whether they be front-porch rockers, old-time religion or playthings made from flowers, will be important to us again. Perhaps as a culture we will someday decide to slow down.
In the heat of southern California, the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright was so impressed with the lowly hollyhock that he built a magnificent house based on the flower’s basic structure. Wright believed in the “organic house,” that nature’s designing power was superior to that of man.
For as much as I would like to say that my yard and garden are my own creations, like Wright, I know better. My best flowers are those accidental hollyhocks, cultivated, not with my hands, but by those of a subtle and awesome power.
Mike Lunsford can be reached by e-mail at hickory913@aol.com, or through regular mail c/o The Tribune-Star, PO Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808.
Local & Bistate
The Off Season: Accidental beauty of hollyhocks a testament to persistence
- Local & Bistate
-
-
Rockville correctional facility program teaches life skills
It’s hard to know who benefits the most: the inmates or the dogs.
-
AAA mag recognizes city for arts works
The nonprofit organization that uses outdoor sculpture to draw attention to Terre Haute is getting some notice of its own.
-
State pushing for convenience stores to make safety a higher priority
In 2002, after New Mexico forced convenience store owners to put sweeping security measures into place for clerks working late-night hours, the number of robberies dropped by 92 percent. Assaults, murders and other crimes at convenience stores also dropped dramatically.
Now Indiana officials are hoping voluntary compliance with similar safety standards will bring about similar results.
-
Patriotism & Honor
From his vantage point, Sonner Faught could see almost every volunteer in the cemetery.
-
Graduation turns to mourning in Clinton
Jeana Lunsford’s graduation from South Vermillion High School Saturday should have been a time of celebration.
-
School choice proponents foresee growth of vouchers
Twenty-seven Vigo County students benefited from tax-supported vouchers during the first year of the Choice Scholarship Program, and that number is expected to grow for 2012-13, say Indiana school choice leaders who visited Terre Haute Thursday.
-
Tales of obstruction meet first takeover attempts
A decade after Indiana legislators gave the state the power to take over chronically failing schools, the first implementation of the law is meeting with resistance, skepticism and questions about its costs.
-
MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
-
3 rescued from burning residence
Quick action on the part of some first-responders is credited with saving the lives of three people in a Vermillion County fire early Saturday morning, according to the Vermillion County Sheriff’s Department.
-
He never forgot a name: Friends remember victim of fire at Garfield Towers
When Freddie Poore met you, he never forgot you.
-
Hometown boy embraces ‘Promise I Made’: Clinton native Ken Kercheval takes role in Dreams Come True production
Thanks to some help from a hometown boy in Hollywood, “This Promise I Made” is still on track to be kept in Clinton.
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Many say they don’t vote in primary because of tag that comes with it
A couple of columns ago, I posed a question about why most Indiana polling places on primary election day had so few customers.
-
Police looking for convenience store robber
Police are seeking a robbery suspect following a Saturday morning armed robbery at the Jiffy MiniMart at 25th Street and Eighth Avenue.
-
Graduation ‘responsibility’: Rose-Hulman stages 134th commencement exercises
Inventor Dean Kamen gave a first-hand demonstration Saturday of how to be an innovator.
-
THE OFF SEASON: To the seniors, one last lecture before you go …
It dawned on me one day last week, as I sat at my desk in my teacher clothes and shoes, a stack of ungraded essays calling to me from a rather tall and depressing pile, that I hadn’t missed a high school graduation in 33 years.
-
Water rescuers
Emergency personnel wheel a man who was removed from a vehicle that had been driven into the water at Crystal Lake on Boston Avenue near 14th Street at about 9 p.m. Friday.
-
For many, camping outdoors is the way to beat the heat, enjoy nature
Stringing up fishing poles in the shade of American flags, households full of Hoosiers are packing into parks across the state this weekend.
-
Towns along National Road readying for next week’s miles-long yard sale
Stretching 824 miles from Baltimore to St. Louis, the National Road — known as U.S. 40 through Indiana — will soon be the host site for perhaps the longest bargain market in the country.
-
Rose grads honoring late president Branam at commencement today
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Class of 2012 will honor the memory of Matt Branam during today’s commencement ceremony by wearing special pins with the phrase “Make It Happen; Make It Fun,” a favorite saying of the former Rose-Hulman president, who died unexpectedly on April 20.
-
Vigo County Jail Log: May 26, 2012
The following individuals were booked into the Vigo County Jail by area law enforcement on Thursday and Friday, based on jail records. Charges are recommended by arresting officers but are not final until the Vigo County prosecutor reviews the case and files official charges.
-
A fallen soldier returns home
An Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Spc. Arronn D. Fields early Thursday morning at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
-
Official touts trade with northern neighbor
A top Canadian diplomat told a Terre Haute audience Thursday his country was “disappointed” when President Obama at least temporarily rejected a proposed transcontinental oil pipeline from Alberta to Texas.
-
Caution urged for summer’s kickoff
Lane restrictions in construction zones on Interstate 70 and other highways around the state will be lifted to accommodate holiday travel for the Memorial Day Weekend.
-
Letters delivered
Several positions will be eliminated this summer at the Terre Haute mail processing facility as the U.S. Postal Service begins moving the operation to Indianapolis, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman has confirmed.
-
Companies seek Vigo tax abatements
Two Vigo County companies are seeking tax abatements for expansion projects, one of which is included as part of a county incentive package.
-
High-speed chase suspect caught in West Virginia
The suspect in a cross-country, high-speed chase originating in Terre Haute last week was reportedly in federal custody Thursday evening.
-
Second victim of deadly I-70 semi-trailer crash identified
The Vigo County Coroner’s Office has identified the passenger of a semi-tractor crash on May 16 in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 near the 12-mile marker.
- VIGO COUNTY JAIL LOG: May 22-24, 2012
-
Burn ban in effect for Vigo County through holiday weekend
Vigo County officials have issued a burn ban effective Thursday and remains in effect until 8 a.m. Tuesday.
-
Brazil remembers a Fallen Son
A small town seemed sadly quiet Wednesday, waiting to honor a local fallen warrior.
- More Local & Bistate Headlines
-
Man Falls Off Crane, Dies After Police Standoff
Witness Describes Fla. Face-chewing Attack
Raw Video: Cop Shoots Man Eating Another's Face
Man in Crane at Texas College Says He's Armed
Unexpected Smog in Pristine National Parks
Obama Honors Fallen Troops at Arlington Cemetery
Raw Video: Deadly Explosion at Minn. Paper Mill
Dairy Farm Uses Chiropractor to Help Cows
Romney Promises World's Strongest Military
Russia Condemns Ally Syria Over Massacre of 108
Air Canada Plane Makes Emergency Landing
Raw Video: Earthquake Shakes Evacuees in Italy
Obama Pays Tribute to Vietnam Veterans
Beryl Knocks Out Power in Florida
Raw Video: 19 Dead in Qatar Shopping Mall Fire
15 Dead in Northern Italy's 5.8-magnitude Quake
Service Dogs Help Wash. Soldiers Battling PTSD
Raw Video: Memorial Day Aboard Intrepid
New Ticks Spread Across Southeast, Diseases Rise
Beryl Makes Landfall on Florida Coast
Los Angeles Bar Bans Bachelorettes
Hamster Plays Dead
Beyonce Shows Off 60 Pound Weight Loss at Concert
Drunk Women Breaking Into Houses: A New Trend?
LeAnn Rimes Rocks Short Shorts
Gordon Ramsay Carried Off Field
Man Dies Getting Lap Dance
Kim Kardashian Claims Items Stolen from Her Luggage
Bear cools off in Calif. family's pool
Ep. 3: Chopped Desserts
Air Force dad surprises family at baseball game
Justin Bieber Wanted for Questioning for L.A. Scuffle
J.Lo and Marc's Friendly Reunion
Jet makes emergency landing after debris falls off
Cynthia Nixon Ties the Knot
Woman, 80, Falls Out of Skydive Harness Mid-Jump
Keira Reveals Engagement Ring
