Anyone recommending erigeron and hollyhocks as companion plants would draw a few strange looks because of their disparity in habits, but they do look strangely suited in this pavement garden.
The erigeron is gently spreading where it can, close to the wall, in the cracks between stone pavements. The bruising footsteps of wayfarers weed any straying youngsters from the main path. Towering above are hollyhocks – not your defoliated, rust-blighted type, but clearly getting enough water and nutrients from somewhere.
Can this be as effortless as it looks? Are the hollyhocks perennials, do you think, companionably self-seeding a few more colours each year and sturdy enough to stand upright without staking, or is there an artful hand at work?
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Susan Rushton 
They look great against the yellow stonework.
They do. I looked it up – it’s a yellow oolitic limestone.
What a lovely picture – the hollyhocks look wonderful!
It is very scenic.
However they receive the nutrients they require, these hollyhocks look lovely.
Oddment is suggesting a subterranean gardener.
I suspect they have both self-seeded from somewhere. Hollyhocks look lovely against a stone wall, especially this honey colour.
If self-seeded, I trust nature is onboard with the idea of levelling up the North, though nature no doubt judges our Herb Robert and Ivy-leaved Toadflax are just as good for filling cracks.
Haha… I have plenty of those two as well! No hollyhocks though.
There’s a stone in the ground in front of the windows that looks suspiciously like some kind of door. I think there must be some kind of subterranean species of gardener, coming and going through that door when no one is around, tending these stone-bound plants. Those little white fellows just sparkle against the stone — what a setting!
Well spotted. I could go with that – some of the most mysterious things are hidden in plain sight.
I love to see where flowers decide they want to come up – they can produce some great-looking surprises!
They’d be very welcome in the pavements round here!
That is the question.
My northern mind inclines me to think they must have had some kind of start, but some people suggest they are self-sown. We should be so lucky!
They indeed adding a nice touch 🙂
Those old stone walls are dreamy, even without the flowers.
Two of my favourites
They could have a long flowering period too, especially if those lofty spires are rationing out one flower at a time.
I agree, the plants suit the local environ well. It looks very effortless indeed. Are they native plants to the area?
I wish! Not since the last ice age, and who knows what was native here before then. They are garden escapes that have been planted somewhere and have spread by seed.