Fuchsia anyone?

[RosieC]

Gorgeous.

I grow a hardy variety in the garden and love them. The hardy ones have smaller flowers but masses and masses of them. The larger flowered ones are very popular in the UK but you have to take them inside over the winter.

I don't have any close up pics but here are my two plants in my front garden when they were in full flower (the flowers also go on most of the summer). They might have smaller flowers but they still put on a display.



These ones will die back to just dead sticks over the winter. I've just this week noticed the first sign of new shoots at the base. In a mild winter I will get some growth off the dead sticks. Still not sure if this year was too harsh, there is still time to see some growth higher up.

Once there is more growth on them in a few weeks I will pune back all the old sticks which show no sign of growing again. The new growth from the base can get to full heigh in a few months.

They will probably flower arround June/July but really get into full swing in August & September (the pic above was taken early september 2007) and will still be flowering well right up to the first heavy frost.

I don't know much about them. These were bought labled 'Fushia Hardy' so I don't know exactly what they are. I always loved my Mum's hardy ones and I was not really interested in having to bring them in during the winter so that's what I got.