Tougher than they look (Hardy Fuchsia)

Member Name: queen_rain

Product:	Hardy Fuchsia
Date:	23/01/05 (5260 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful looking, Flowers all year round (in some parts of the country), tolerates neglect

Disadvantages: Not all fuchsias are hardy, May die down in winter

Fuchsias look like elegant, delicate ladies who might shudder and faint as soon as it gets cold, but they are much tougher than they look. They can survive cold winters, frosts, storms, and years of neglect.

They come in many varieties of various degrees of winter-hardiness.

Just how 'hardy' they are depends on the area where you live: In the southwest, in big cities, and in coastal areas frosts are rarer, and therefore more types of fuchsia survive the winter outdoors than in the countryside, in the mountains, inland, and in the north.
A fuchsia can be a wonderfully easy plant to grow, or one requiring a lot of skill and knowledge. It depends on the type you choose.

If you're a fuchsia hobbyist who can wax lyrical about the numbers of petals and sepals, pollinates flowers with a camel hair brush, lovingly digs out the precious rare fuchsias of his collection every winter to replant them in the shelter of a heated greenhouse.... then you don't need my advice.

However, if you're an inexperienced, unskilled, clumsy, impatient or plain lazy gardener, please read on.


WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

Fuchsias are graceful-looking shrubs, growing about 1 to 2 meters high.

They bearing lots flowers in summer and autumn, and often in winter, too. The blooms look like exotic earrings dangling from the branches. Mauve, pink and red are the most common flower colouors.


WHICH VARIETY TO CHOOSE

Fuchsia Magellanica is the hardiest and most easy to grow, wherever you live. It's definitely beginner-friendly.

Within the species 'Magellancia' there are severeal cultivars to choose from, each with different flower colours.


The most spectacular looking of these - and the one your neighbours are most likely to have - is Fuchsia magellanica 'riccartonii' with mauve&red blossoms. I'm sure your local garden centre will stocdk it.

Fuchsia magellanica 'alba' has creamy-white flowers, wheras Fuchsia magellanica 'gracilis' has blooms which are all mauve and the effect is a bit dull except from closeup.


There are, of course, lots of fuchsias, other than 'magellancia', but they need more care, knowledge or attention.

You may like to try a Fuchsia 'Madame Cornelissen'. It's quite small (less than 1 m high and only 30 cm wide), but it is quite resilient to cold weather, flowers from midsummer to late autumn, and has pretty red&white blooms.


HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR FUCHSIA

If you've chosen a 'magellancia', you don't need to care for it at all. It will grow all by itself.

I've recently done up a garden for people who had neglected it for four years. Under all the brambles and bindweed I found two lovely Fuchsia magellanica (different cultivars). They hadn't been pruned, they hadn't been fed, one of them was so covered with weedy growth that it had hardly got any light. Yet both were healthy and alive.

So a Fuchsia magellanica is suitable even for lazy gardeners.

However, if you want to be nice to you plant, there are a few things you can do:

1. In the summer, when the weather is hot and dry, give it some water.

2. Now and then, treat it to a spoonful of fertilizer. Ordinary multi-purpose plant feed will do. If you don't like using chemicals, then a few forkfuls of compost from your compost heap once a year is even better.

3. Cut the whole plant down once a year, so that only an inch or two of the stems are still sticking out of the ground. Yes, really. It will grow back, stronger than before. Do this in spring. April is the best month for this.

That's all!



DON'T PANIC IF IT LOOKS DEAD

If you live in a cold area, it's quite likely that all the branches die down in winter. Your plant may look mighty dead, and you may be tempted to pull it out. Don't worry: Your plant is just sleeping. Cut the dead stems off in the spring, and it will flourish.

On the other hand, if you live in a warm part of the country, it may not die down.

I live on the Sussex coast, and the Fuchsia magellanica around here are all still in magnificent bloom. It's 8 December! How's that for winter colour?

WHERE TO PLANT

Fuchsias are not fussy about where you plant them, as long as there is some sun. They don't mind mild shade. Ordinary garden soil will do.

However: don't plant it under a tree. I don't know why, but fuchsias and trees have a longstanding feud. Usually it's the fuchsia who loses the battle, curls up and withers.



HOW TO GET THE BEST EFFECT

A Fuchsia looks lovely as the only shrub in a small flowerbed, surrounded by low annual bedding plants, especially white, pink, red or mauve flowering ones.

You can also use it as part of a flowering hedge, or in a mixed border or shrub border.

Fuchsias also look graceful in a container or in a hanging basket. However, the container or hanging basket has to be large, since the Fuchsia magellanica is quite a big plant. Besides, a Fuchsia in any sort of container will need constant watering in the summer; this is a distinct drawback for the lazy gardener.

The most stunning effect is a Fuchsia hedge. Yes, a hedge with nothing but fuchsias. Even if you choose only fuchsias of one type, the effect will be breathtaking.

However, I recommend this only if you live in a mild area, where the fuchsias *don't* die down in the winter. Otherwise your 'hedge' will crumble into a strip of decayying plant for several months of the year. Down here we're lucky: We have brightly-flowered hedges even now in winter.



HOW TO GET FREE FUCHSIAS

You can increase your fuchsia collection without spending any money by a method the experts call 'rooting softwood cuttings'.

1. This is how it goes. In spring or summer, snip of the tips of some healthy looking branches - about the length of a finger.

2. Remove the lower leaves.

3. Stick the cuttings into a small pot full of multi-purpose compost. Stick them quite deeply, so that at least half the stem is underground.

4. Place it on a windowsill where the sun is not scorching hot, keep the compost slightly moist.

5. Keep the compost slightly moist. Keep the young plants indoors for their first winter.

This method works. It's really as simple as that. Not all cuttings will root, but if you take a dozen and only two or three survive, you've still got three fuchsias.

If you are willing to spend a bit more time, you can increase the chances by dipping the cuttings into a jar of 'hormone rooting powder', by using a propagator or by placing a clear plastic bag over the pot to conserve moisture.


Don't be shy asking your neighbours if you may take cuttings of their fuchsias. They'll agree gladly, especially if you begin with "I've been admiring your fuchsia... it looks really healthy... what variety is it?... would you mind if I take a cutting? Or two or three or a dozen?"


Every expert has a different opinion about when is the best time of the year for cuttings. Their advice can be anything from April to August. Most agree on 'early summer', but personally I've had the best results with August cuttings.


I'm planning to write more plant reviews - all aimed at the inexperienced/unskilled/clumsy/frightened/impatien t/lazy gardener. I would therefore welcome your feedback about what aspects of this review you found particularly interesting, as well as suggestions how to improve on it.

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