Fuchsias
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While many plants do well in summer heat, those that prefer cool moist conditions, such as fuchsias, tend to suffer. Consequently it’s often not until the weather noticeably cools in mid autumn that we start to see the best of the fuchsia flowers. Of course, fuchsias bloom right through from late spring until early winter, but it’s from late summer till the first frosts that they really show their greatest beauty.
The genus Fuchsia, which is primarily native to Central and South America with a few species from the Pacific Islands and New Zealand, comprises approximately 100 species that often interbreed easily. Countless hybrids having been raised since the first was recorded in the 1832 and they have probably been manipulated into more styles and forms than any other plant. They are grown as bushes, hedges, standards, ground covers, hanging baskets and climbers. Some cultivars are only suited to one style but many will do double or even triple duty.
The flowers are variable, ranging from minute single to huge fully blown doubles, but they all share a similar and very distinctive structure, with the tube and sepals being the most conspicuous features. These are far larger in fuchsias than most other plants and they are often a contrasting colour to corolla (petals).
The tube, which connects directly to the ovary (which in turn develops into those familiar berries), may be very short or over half the length of the flower.
Some fuchsias have long, pointed, drooping sepals; others have sepals that are short, blunt and recurved. Whatever their size and shape, it is the sepals that are usually the first part of the flower to catch the eye.
The corolla can be composed of as few as four petals or it may be very full and frilly. Some gardeners insist on fancy double flowers, but most fuchsia growers soon find that the singles often bloom more heavily and their lighter flowers are less likely to lead to branches that droop and break under their own weight.
The fuchsia colour palette is very wide, including all shades of pink and mauve, purple, orange and red with white. Many flowers are multi-coloured and some of the species even have a hint of yellow, although this is rarely seen in garden hybrids.
Soft pulpy fruits follow the flowers and one of our New Zealand fuchsias, F. procumbens, is primarily grown for its large, bright red berries. Fuchsia procumbens is also distinctive because of its prostrate habit, making it one of the lowest growing of all fuchsias. At the other extreme is the most common native species, F. excorticata, which can grow to 12 m high.
Fuchsia cultivation
Fuchsias are most at home in dappled shade and woodland conditions with open, moist, humus filled soil that is neutral to slightly acidic (pH 6.5–7). Work in plenty of high humus compost before planting and water well in summer and your fuchsias should thrive. They also appreciate regular feeding, responding well to mild liquid fertilisers.
Provided they can be kept moist and sheltered from hot dry winds, fuchsias will also thrive in reasonably sunny positions. By growing your fuchsias in the sun you may lose a few of the summer flowers to sunburn but your plants will continue to bloom later in the autumn.
Fuchsias are unusual in the way they react to winter cold. If exposed to frosts they become deciduous and the plants remain bare until spring. But in frost-free areas, fuchsias remain evergreen and may even flower year round. There are some fuchsias that are genuinely frost tender and they may be killed over winter, but the majority will survive quite hard frosts and will reshoot from the roots provided they are well insulated.
Training
Some fuchsias are natural bushes, others natural trailers and all may be trained by pinching, staking and other methods. Refer to specialist fuchsia books for details of all the ways of training your plants; the following are the most common:
Bushes
Most hybrids are naturally bushy, developing into plants that are about as wide as they are high. They are usually grown in garden beds — planted with other shrubs or grown on their own. Shrubby fuchsias are very adaptable and blend well with most broad-leaved shrubs and are probably at their best in woodland gardens with moisture loving perennials, such as hostas and astilbes.
While young plants should be pinched back to encourage bushy growth, established bushes need little in the way of maintenance other than a light trimming and tidying once a year. Where fuchsias remain evergreen, prune in autumn or winter, otherwise leave any pruning until spring to lessen the risk of frost damage.
Hanging baskets
Natural trailers or ground cover fuchsias are commonly grown in hanging baskets where the beauty of their cascading blooms can be fully appreciated.
Long stemmed trailers tend to have a rather open growth habit and may become quite bare in the centre. They’re most effective when grown in hanging baskets that will be viewed entirely from below. Semi-trailers don’t have such long stems and are more heavily foliaged. They’re the best choice for easy-care hanging baskets or where the top of the basket may be seen.
Hanging basket dry out very quickly and even with the use of water holding crystals in the potting mix they may still need daily watering in summer. Trailing fuchsias are rapid growers, so regular pinching back and fortnightly feeding with a liquid fertiliser are also important.
Standards
Fuchsias are seldom grafted, so the usual method of producing a standard is to train and trim naturally upright bushes. To make your own standard, start with a single stemmed cutting, pinch out the lower leaves and any side growths and keep removing them as the stem grows. Pinch, stake and tie until the desired height is reached, then pinch out the top to create a bushy head of foliage.
Where frosts are common, standards need winter protection. Wrapping the stem with an insulating layer of carpet underlay or similar material will help protect against light frosts. However, gardeners in frosty areas find it easier to grow their standard fuchsias in pots that can be moved under cover for winter.
Hedges
Very densely foliaged fuchsias, particularly F. magellanica and its varieties, can be used for hedging. Where fuchsias remain evergreen, prune in winter, otherwise delay pruning until spring to lessen the risk of frost damage. A light annual trim after winter is usually enough to maintain a good shape without lessening the flowering too much. If the growth is very rapid, a summer trimming may also be necessary.
Climbers
Some particularly strongly upright fuchsias can be used as climbers or, more accurately, espaliers. Start by training a few main branches straight up, tying them as they grow, and then develop laterals from the main branches to fill in the framework. Encourage basal suckers to grow and fill any gaps.
Container growing
Fuchsias thrive in containers filled with a good quality neutral to slightly acid potting mix. Ensure that the plants do not become dry at any time and feed regularly with liquid fertilisers or slow release pellets to improve the foliage colour and flower yield.
Fuchsias react badly to having their roots frozen and if the soil in the pots freezes solid the plants may die. Chose hardy varieties or winter the pots somewhere sheltered.
Greenhouse growing
Fuchsias are superb plants for greenhouses or conservatories, even where they are quite capable of surviving outdoors, though the flower colours may be slightly paler indoors. The tender Central and South American species can become very large in a warm greenhouse.
The most important points when growing fuchsias indoors are maintaining reasonably high humidity, water and feed well, and watching out for pests and diseases. Supplementary lighting may be necessary to keep your fuchsias flowering year round and you may have to put up with some leaf drop in winter if the temperature regularly approaches freezing.
Pests and diseases
Grown outdoors, under suitable conditions, fuchsias are usually trouble-free. They get their share of common problems but generally nothing serious. Cutworms can sometimes spoil the flowers by eating out the centres of the buds but a nocturnal hunt quickly locates the culprits.
Fuchsias grown indoors often suffer from botrytis, rust and whiteflies. Botrytis and rust are fungal diseases and most likely to be a problem in mild, moist weather — usually in the autumn. Where fuchsias remain evergreen, rust can be particularly bad in winter. Regular spraying with fungicides from mid March onwards is recommended.
If left unchecked, whiteflies (particularly the larvae) cause serious problems through sap sucking and the sooty mould that grows on the honeydew deposits they secrete. Most insecticides will kill adult whiteflies but the larvae are difficult to get at and hard to kill. Make sure the undersides of the foliage are well covered with spray.
Propagation
Because most garden fuchsias are hybrids they must propagated vegetatively. Soft or semi-ripe cuttings strike easily at any time during the growing season and are a quick method of increasing plant numbers. Many gardeners strike their fuchsia cuttings in water, but better root systems develop on plants struck in soil. Use tip cuttings that are about 3 or 4 nodes long and make sure the cutting are kept cool and shaded because they seldom recover from wilting.
Species
The species are not as widely grown as the hybrids because they often lack their flamboyance. However, they make up for that with some unusual flower colours and forms and some species have attractive foliage. They’re not always easy to find out side the specialist nurseries, but consider the following:
F. arborescens (Central America)
A tree up to 8 m tree with deep green leaves and small lavender flowers in sprays. Frost tender.
F. coccinea (Brazil)
A dense shrub that was used to produce some of the first hybrids. Its small red-tubed flowers have a purple corolla. Quite hardy.
F. denticulata (Peru & Bolivia)
A large, moderately hardy shrub with blue-green leaves and distinctive long-tubed pinkish red flowers. The sepals are cream and green at the tips. The corolla is bright red.
F. excorticata (New Zealand)
This shrub or small tree with dry peeling bark grows throughout New Zealand. Its small flowers, which often sprout directly from the trunk, have green tube and sepals when first open, they then darken to a purplish red with the sepals often remaining greenish the base and tips. The corolla is deep purple.
F. magellanica (Chile & Argentina)
A very hardy shrub or small tree that occurs in several coloured foliage forms. Its flowers are small; the tube and long sepals are red and the corolla is lavender to purple. It is very easy to grow and withstands almost anything except severe drought.
F. procumbens (New Zealand)
This widely cultivated fuchsia is a wiry-stemmed sprawling ground cover that is usually grown in rockeries or hanging baskets. It has rounded light green leaves and upward-facing greenish yellow flowers with no corolla. Although the flowers are notable for their red stamens and bright blue pollen, this fuchsia is grown primarily for its fruits, which are like small plums, up to 25 mm in diameter and covered with a plum-like bloom.
F. splendens (Mexico)
A reasonably hardy large shrub with red-tinted, heart-shaped leaves. The tube is scarlet and quite short, and the sepals, which stand out stiffly from the tube, are greenish-yellow with green tips. The corolla is light green with a reddish tint.
F. thymifolia (Mexico)
A dense bushy shrub with small serrated leaves and very tiny (less than 10 mm long) pink flowers with white corollas. It makes a superb bonsai with very little effort, is suitable for hedging and is hardy and easily grown.
F. triphylla (Santo Domingo)
A very distinctive species with large, lance-shaped, velvety, bronze-green, red-veined leaves and long-tubed glowing red flowers carried in clusters at the branch tips. It is an upright plant that can easily be trained as a standard. Very beautiful, but very frost tender. There are many F. triphylla hybrids in a range of foliage types and flower colours, all sharing the long tubular blooms that are such a feature of the species.
Hybrid fuchsias
With so many hybrids available, the best advice I can give is simply to choose your plants in flower and to make sure that you get the appropriate growth type for the intended use and location. Most garden centres stock a wide range and you’re more likely to be overwhelmed by the selection than hard-pressed to find a choice.
Whichever fuchsias you chose, it’s hard to think of any other heavy flowering shrubs that are so easy to grow and provide such a beautiful display over such a long season, especially in the autumn.
Copyright Geoff Bryant
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