Experimenting With Hollyhock Seeds

A few weeks ago I was talking to a customer in the garden center where I work. We were talking about hollyhocks. I've always thought they were beautiful but with as tall as they get and as windy as it can be at my house I thought they wouldn't do well. She assured me they are an easy to grow flower and would hold up to the wind. She said if I used seeds I would have to wait for next year to see any flowers because they need freezing weather to "pop" open the seed pods. Here's where my experiment comes in.

double hollyhocks

We have packets of hollyhock seeds at the store and I wondered if putting them in my freezer would do the trick and still get flowers this year. So, I bought a packet of seeds and did just that. They've been in my freezer for about a month and just today I went out and planted them. Now when I read on the package to start them in a cold frame and plant them in early summer I only hesitated slightly. I wanted to get them in the soil now. It's a beautiful sunny day in the upper 50's. I haphazardly chose several spots to plant them and planted all the seeds in the packet. I could see when I looked at them closely that they indeed looked as if they had "popped". Time will tell if this experiment works or not. I'll keep you posted.