Eh, it's just some cosmetic damage

I am quite impressed with the size of all the plants this year. I'm not attributing this to a magical green thumb, but rather the combination of a mild winter and sunny skies much earlier than anticipated.  It's amazing to see the daisies I started in the tub last year, they are nearly as tall as me.  Same way with the catnip I started last year.  Best of all, the hollyhocks I started mid summer are covered in buds and two of the nine are taller than me.  I have a couple of mini ones, I hit them with the mower a few times this year (oops) but they've recovered nicely and at a foot tall have many buds!  The down side of this is the rust.  Yes, dreaded rust, just like on your precious 87 Toyota.  I can save you a trip to Wikipedia:

Puccinia malvacearum, also known as hollyhock rust, is a species within the Puccinia genus known for attacking members of the Malvaceae family. An autoecious pathogen, it can complete its life cycle using a single host. 
Yuck.  The short end of it is rust is a nasty fungus that attacks only hollyhocks & their BFFs.  They get these gross little spots that aren't bad on the tops (see below) but do look pretty funky on the bottom.  Basically it will munch up the whole damn leaf and it's a dried up skeleton.  Kiss your big leaves goodbye.

Exhibit A, some rusty ass leaves.

I've already attempted to control the problem by cutting off the foliage & treating with fungicide.  Recent rains have not helped my problem and the rust continues to spread.  It's not jut the leaves, either.  I see spots on the stalk & I've even seen a few contaminated buds.  Depending on the location of the different hollyhocks some have it much worse than others.  As I said I've tried containing it and it's just not working well for me.  I don't want to cut them down.  They are very tall and are covered in buds, and I just wanted to see a flower damnit.  Two days ago I saw the first bits of color poking out, and this morning two (same plant) had bloomed.  There are also three more buds ready to burst and I say flower away!  I do have two plants sort of marked for execution as they aren't much more than leaves poking out of the ground, but any of them with buds can hang out - let's see what happens.  I'll look past your leprosy, little hollyhock!

It's so beautious!