HOW tall is your hollyhock?

Well, Sandhills resident David Ward thinks his is taller.

The keen gardener from Merewood Avenue has been growing hollyhocks for four years, and his latest specimen is more than three metres high.

He said: “There is no magical secret. We don’t stand and talk to it. It has a decent bit of soil and it just grows.

“I don’t know whether it is a record or not, but I am pretty proud of it.

“It grew four inches between yesterday and today.”

Mr Ward and his wife Lorraine have other hollyhock plants dotted around their garden which they have been growing after getting some seed from one of their neighbours.