Love your Fuchsia Plants.
I would like to show you a number of different ways that you can grow your Fuchsia plants in hanging Baskets, as well as growing Fuchsia’s in many more containers. Some Fuchsia Nurseries and Garden Centres will supply a ready made hanging basket, in the basket they will also insert other so called hanging plants these plants make a well designed basket look rubbish.
We have noticed at some of the larger Garden Centre’s the Fuchsia varieties used have been the hardy garden varieties. Hardy Fuchsia plants are not of any use in hanging baskets or other container, i.e. pots, troughs or patio planters (unless you are growing hardies for your local show). We have seen at times such hardies as “Refus the Red” this variety is so fast growing it will out grow any hanging basket and it will need to be pruning all season, this is likely to remove all the flowering branches. Fuchsia Refus is best planted straight into a border and being hardy it will keep on flowering year after year.
Most hardy Fuchsia plants will grow into a fine shrub, a Fuchsia shrub is treated very much like any other shrub pruned approx mid to late spring, the longer you leave the dead wood on top of the hardy Fuchsia plant the better, pruning to early in the season may open the plant up to diseases, plus if there is a very cold snap the frost might just enter the crown of the plant and kill the Fuchsia altogether, if the old wood is left on the plant it will help to deflect some of the frost away from the centre of the crown.
Sticking with hardy Fuchsia’s for a moment we have found there are two very good Fuchsia hedging plants on the market they are “Fuchsia Magellanica types”, the first is Fuchsia Magellanica Gracilis and Gracilis versicolour or (variagata) these varieties can be obtained from most Fuchsia Nurseries or via mail order.
The flower size on these varieties is not large but they will flower for eight months of the year and are covered from head to foot with bloom, also these plants are so vigorous after only three years they will make a large Fuchsia hedge in warmer parts of the country. They stay green and do not need any pruning. These plants will not tolerate shaded areas in-fact there are not many Fuchsia plants for shaded areas they are best grown in good light, some of the White varieties will turn Fuchsia Pink in full sunshine.
The mail order of Fuchsia’s has taken off over the last 20 years and we use it ourselves when looking for new Fuchsia varieties for our own Mail Order business.
Most Fuchsia plants will require a certain amount of pinching. Pinching Fuchsia’s will make the plant more bushy over the season but to much pinching can result in less flowers, let me explain the art of pinching, pinching is where the plant has it’s growing tip’s removed to encourage more flowering side shoots, the problem we have is the tip you remove will have all the flower buds, so removing them cuts down the amount of flower at that time.
The side shoots will develop over time and make flowering tips of there own, this can take up to six weeks for a Single flowered variety like Fuchsia Flash, this variety has a single Magenta Red flower which is very free flowering so hard pinching will not do to much damage. Fuchsia Army Nurse is another variety that will respond to hard pinching even though it is classed as a semi-double flower, the flowers are small and very profuse.
The pinching of Double flowering Fuchsia varieties like Fuchsia Seventh Heaven and Fuchsia Blue Eyes are much harder to control, when to pinch and when not to pinch is the brain teaser especially if Seventh Heaven Fuchsia is your chosen cultivars for your local show.
The wrong pinching dates can have the result that you miss the local or national show dates. Here is a little tip most Double Flowering Fuchsia’s will take ten to twelve weeks to flower from your first pinching, always grow more than one plant if you are due to show fuchsia plants, this might seem very obvious but over the last thirty years growing and judging local and national shows the amount of entrant’s having to drop out from the shows due to the entries only being in bud and not in flower was very high.
This is such a shame because growing Fuchsia plants for showing is very rewarding, you also has a double edge to your sword, the more your plants are seen the more exposure your spin-off Nursery income can benefit, (we will go more into this next month). Over the years we have been asked many questions about the growing of Fuchsia’s, the number one question is where is the best place to plant Fuchsia’s and when can they be planted outside?
The first answer to where to plant Fuchsia, anywhere you like as long as the Fuchsia’s you plant outside are not varieties such as Fuchsia Gartenmeister Bonstedt, that is a triphylla-type and is best grown indoors. To most Fuchsia gardeners the Fuchsia plant is more at home in a Hanging Basket or Patio Planter. Some varieties such as Fuchsia Purple Rain do require a sheltered position but not total shade, this variety will suffer from rain and wind damage.
The overriding enjoyment to most Fuchsia Gardeners is to see a well grown Fuchsia plant in a hanging basket gently rustling in the mid summer breeze, this is the first love of all Fuchsia growers.
Trevor Dalley has been growing and preserving his own fruit for 40 year, most of the preserves are sold in his Organic Farm Shops in Herefordshire England. Did you find those tips on Organic Food a way of Life [http://gardendesignhelp.blogspot.com] useful?
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