Right around Mother's Day, fluffed-up fuchsia baskets start appearing in garden centers, a signal of spring and the beginning of the garden season. But then hot weather hits and in one day that flower-powerful plant begins its descent into a weakling of wilting, yellowed foliage and sluggish blooms.
Of course, there are the dedicated who ply their hanging baskets with water and fertilizer, keeping them beautiful until cold weather threatens and they're moved into the garage for a winter's sleep. For most of us, though, the mysteries of nurturing and overwintering these often disappointing plant, is beyond us.
Caring for hardy fuchsias
Here are seven quick tips:
- Though it may seem counterintuitive, put hardy fuchsias in full sun to part shade. The more sun they get, the lusher the foliage and the more flower power.
- Make sure the soil drains well. It's a good idea to build a little hill to plant into. Don't use peat moss or vermiculite or any other soil amendment that holds water in the soil. Compost is the best bet.
- Plant deeply as you would tomatoes. Large plants 4 to 6 inches deep; or if a 4-inch pot, bury half of the plant. This is key.
- Feed when plants come up in spring with a fertilizer that's high in phosphorus, such as 15-30-15.
is a good option. If you choose a time-release fertilizer, use only as a top dressing or it will burn the roots. If you use liquid fertilizer, apply twice a month.
- Water thoroughly once a week, more if the weather is particularly hot.
- To help protect the plant, cover with 4 to 6 inches of mulch after the first frost.
- Don't cut back until spring when you see new growth. Remove mulch and prune back to 6 inches. Leaving the plant up during winter helps protect it from cold.
There is an option: hardy fuchsias that have the same look but live year after year. That, however, isn't a well-known fact.
Ann Detweiler, co-owner with her husband Mark Leichty of Fry Road Nursery in Albany, recently had a virtual conversation with a customer on the East Coast. Ten emails later, she finally got him to understand the concept of a hardy fuchsia.
"It's confusing," says Detweiler. "People take it to mean they're easy to grow, unfussy, but don't think about them being frost hardy. That's the bugaboo of trying to explain it."
But once our stubborn brains accept that hundreds - thousands if you count backyard breeders - of fuchsias come back year after year, the love affair begins.
Detweiler had that moment more than six years ago when she snuck away from the nursery one afternoon and headed to Monnier's Country Gardens in Woodburn, where Ron and Debbie Monnier were doing some of the best breeding and testing of fuchsias in the country.
"I was blown away," Detweiler says simply. "I fell in love."
Not long after, the Monniers, who were thinking of retiring, came to visit Fry Road.
"They saw our insane number of cultivars and weird plants," says Detweiler, "and thought we were crazy enough to take on their collection. They gifted it to us. That's how we got into fuchsias."
At the time, she and Leichty were selling about 40 different "normal, run-of-the-mill" hanging-basket fuchsias.
Now they're selling about 350 varieties of hardy fuchsias and 150 tender varieties - more than 50,000 a year - at their retail center, online, to growers and garden centers and three Winco stores in Eugene, Springfield and Corvallis.
People are catching on.
It's not hard to figure out why. The blooms, single, semi-double and double, make an appearance from mid-June to first frost, sometimes right up to Thanksgiving.
Sizes range from the 5- to 6-foot Fuchsia magellanica with its rainfall of small red flowers to ground-cover types such as F. procumbens, a strange little thing with finger-shaped flowers with orange and blue stamens shooting out of recurved green petals.
Between those extremes are average-sized plants of 2 to 3 feet tall and wide with flowers of every color but yellow.
Care of hardy fuchsias is different than for the tender types. Plant them deep in the ground, up to half the plant under ground for 4-inch pots. They should be mulched in winter and not cut back until spring.
"Some people can't stand a messy look and cut them down in fall," says Detweiler. "But you have to stop that because it lowers the winter hardiness. Always wait until you see new growth."
Most important is planting hardy fuchsias in the sun. Really. When the Monniers were doing their groundbreaking work, all fuchsias were planted in full-sun trial beds. They thrived.
"It freaks people out," says Detweiler, "but we've continued that tradition and they grow stronger and have more flowers than if you grow them in the shade."
One more reason to grow hardy fuchsias: They keep hummingbirds hanging around. Like Detweiler says, "How can you not love them?"
-- Kym Pokorny
Kym Pokorny covers gardens for national magazines and other media. She can be reached at Madrona29@yahoo.com. Follow her on Twitter @kympokorny