There are a huge variety of fuchsias available to gardeners. They can be grown in a number of different ways to create unusual and eye-catching shapes. Being relatively easy to grow, they can bring pleasure to inexperienced gardeners, while experts can enjoy exploring their complexity by experimenting with shape and color.
Standard Fuchsia
A standard fuchsia has a single straight stem, usually fairly tall, supporting a head of flowers or branches. The length of the stem determines whether the plant is a standard, half-standard and so on.
Training a plant into a good standard can take a few months so would normally start during the previous autumn. The stem is encouraged to straighten by regularly rotating the plant to share the available light around the stem, and by removing side shoots to encourage upward growth.
Frost is a problem for all fuchsias. A standard fuchsia needs to be kept in a heated greenhouse or indoors during the winter. An unusual color of flower or foliage, which is known as a sport, is often sought by enthusiasts who hope that it will be repetitive in which case they will have a new variety.
Fuchsia Bushes And Hedges
Fuchsias are well known for being hardy summer flowering shrubs. Because of their vigorous nature, they will flower on new growth in the same season, so it is normal to prune them selectively once in spring. When established, they can be cut down severely to encourage new growth, as long as there is no further threat of frost.
Kept over winter, an unheated greenhouse or a cool windowsill such as a garage is most suitable for small bush varieties of fuchsia being readied for the new season. An interesting variety for bushes are the microphylla types, which have small flowers and present a flood of color against rich green foliage.
Fuchsias make excellent flowering hedges, one of the conventional wisdoms being to establish a hedge from bushes by alternating stronger and weaker growths. A popular, strong-growing variety for a hedge is fuchsia magellanica.
Fuchsia Hanging Baskets
The bell-shaped head of a fuchsia makes an excellent counterpoint to many flowers so that given the variety of colours available, one of the great joys of growing fuchsias is seeing them flourish in a hanging basket or other container. It should be noted, however, that if kept indoors in a container they need to be kept cool or they will deteriorate quickly.
Deadheading fuchsias, by nipping off any faded flowers just behind the flower itself, in containers and hanging baskets keeps the displays looking good and will prolong flowering into the autumn. The swingtime variety of fuchsia makes a very attractive hanging basket. A good standard fuchsia can be used to make a tall centrepiece for a container.
Shaping A Fuchsia
A major benefit of the fuchsia is that it is fast growing, so that a gardener can observe results quickly compared to many other flowers. Because of this, the fuchsia particularly lends itself to being shaped by clever pruning. A key technique is pinch pruning, also known as stopping, in which the main bud of new growth is pinched off between a finger and thumb. This causes the plant to seek new growth outwards so a bush effect rather than straight growth is created. The growth proliferates due to the vigorous nature of the fuchsia, and fuchsias can be encouraged to grow horizontally and vertically into a variety of shapes.
A popular shape is to create a fan effect by encouraging growth along canes in a fan-shaped framework, sometimes supported by netting. The fan is effectively almost two-dimensional and can be used to create a particularly attractive background or a feature in its own right. The swingtime can be encouraged into shapes, as can the snowcap fuchsia, if regularly pinch-pruned. Techniques for shaping fuchsias lend themselves to experimentation and enjoyment for both novice and expert gardeners.
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