I wish i could help, im sure next year theyll really take off. I think ( and i may be really wrong) that i heard that yellow hollyhocks often pop up as seedlings so maybe that one in particular was a little mistake?
Have you heard about winter sowing? I ws a bunch of them very successfully , and next year should have a nice display. That could save you alot of money and its super fun!

Long periods of heat can stunt plant growth. I have had hollyhocks bloom the first year, when the plants are still quite short. Hollyhocks are biennials. I had a huge hollyhock bush, which I had grown from seed. It was five years old when rabbits ate it down to the ground and killed it.

The minerals in the soil (or lack thereof) can affect the color of flowers. Sometimes nurseries mislabel plants. I had two incidents of purchasing mislabeled plants this year. I bought Armenian cucumbers (aka snake melons), which turned out to be another type of melon. I bought green chili plants, which proved to be jalapenos.

Hollyhocks are easy to grow from seeds. The seeds should be sown in the fall. Now is a good time (September).

55 years my Sis and I planted hollyhocks all over my grand father's farm in the fall. I bet they are still growing. In my country style garden I WS sowed some. They are doing great. In olden days they would plant them by the out-house. So when company came could find it fast when pulling in the drive.

With the heat, my hh's were stunted this year. Let's both of us hope that they were growing lots of roots!!

Nancy.

Mine are always small with just a few leaves the first year. Then the second spring they shoot up and bloom. I have had a few first year plants get a stunted little bloom down in the leaves, but I usually just cut those off.
Renee

Subsoil is not really good for growing, it's not "soil". When they dig out your foundation for the house, they then spread that subsoil around on top. Either order a dumptruck load of topsoil, or get several pickup trucks of compost, spread it around and wait a year. If it's subsoil you have, you will never grow anything well.