The human female actually managed to get some of the hollyhock seedlings into the ground last weekend. She only planted four, since she discovered they didn’t have much in the way of roots yet.
Let us go out and see how they are faring.
Oh, dear. One is completely absent. And then there’s this:
Not good.
Not good AT ALL. Sigyn is quite distraught.
This one seems to have survived, though it is looking a little spindly.
This one might be a keeper as well.
The human female is going to plant some more today. They’ve had an extra week of coddling and they’re a little bigger now, so maybe they’ll be happier.
Look at those happy hollyhocks! Look at that happy Sigyn.
Sigyn loves gardening.
“Aha!” I can hear you say, “That means old Loki lost his bet about something eating them before she could get them into the ground.”
Not so fast there, mortal!
Do you see those wandery lines in this leaf? Classic case of hollyhock leaf miners, the larvae of a little fly that likes to tunnel around between the top and bottom layers of the leaf, munching away at all the mesophyll. I didn’t actually put the little dickens on the leaf and tell it to have at it, but I may or may not have put the word out that there was a banquet in the offing on the back patio…
Still, I win. Pay up!
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