It's a forest--of sorts.

I grew up in western Oregon, with a forest in my back yard.  Now I live in eastern Utah, in the middle of the desert.  As you can imagine, it's been a bit of an adjustment.  Several years ago, we built a house.  The next summer, I started planting.  But the plants that you can grown in western Oregon are very different than the ones you'd choose for Utah.  I added a new word to my vocabulary--Xeriscaping--and took on the challenge.

One of the first plants I added to our home was a hollyhock.  It was available in the early spring, when I was desperately searching the nursery for anything green, and my gardening books assured me it was "drought tolerant when established."  It survived.  So the next spring, I sowed some hollyhock seeds next to it.  Next year--wow!  I swear those little plants must be related to the beans in Jack and the Beanstalk because they grew like crazy. . .and multiplied.

I love waiting for them to pop out each summer.  In the spring, the kids and I chop down the last year's stalks (and I do mean chop--I have to use my large pruners).  Then we wait for the magic.  One day we can see a carpet of green spread along the west side of our home.  A week later, it seems, little stalks have shot upward.  Then the heat of summer arrives and suddenly the entire side of our home is covered by these lofty, friendly flowers.

Our trees may be small, but we have a forest--an entire grove of hollyhocks.