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| D & B Fuchsia Nursery as a web site is receiving quite a few questions from around the country in regards to the care and culture of Fuchsia plants. We encourage these questions and will do our best to answer. |
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| Bob & Joyce from Northern Illinois ask: Do you have any recommendations or tips on the Subject needs of "hanging basket" Fuchsias? (I am in Northern Illinois, 30 miles SW of Chicago, and my Fuchsia varieties are unknown. I have been watering four of them almost every morning (until water runs out of their drains). They are located in almost 100% shade under a NE facing porch. I have also been removing the spent blooms and their seed pods daily, and using dilute "Miracle-Grow" every other day or two. However, the flowers are not as large as they were a few weeks ago (although the weather has varied widely, from 95-degree heat for days, to cool, 60-degree nights lately. Any information you can send will be greatly appreciated! How do you identify what variety of Fuchsia you have? There was no identification on the 10-inch hanging pots, and two of them are just spectacular at times, loaded with large blooms: One plant has 4 white outer petals (~2.5 inches across) with a touch of pink on their undersides, and a dark pink lower flower with 4 to 5 heart shaped petals. The flower, seed pod, and stem usually all drop off together, before I have a chance to pinch them off! Another one has 4 dark pink outer petals (same size as above) with the same dark pink color on their undersides. The flower is a medium dark purple with 5 to 7 oval or fan-shaped petals. Its flower drops off the seed pod, which ripens on its stem, growing to about 3/4-inch long and more than 1/4-inch in diameter. The stem end of the seed pod gets browner and larger than the far end...Sincerely, Bob & Joyce Answer: Bob & Joyce, If we were going to give anyone some advise on the care of Fuchsia hanging baskets it would probably not differ too much from what you are presently doing. It sounds like your plants are plenty healthy, you are just concerned that the blooms do not seem to be as large as before. We have found this to be consistant with lots of variety's. One of our favorites 'Quazar' is monstrous when it first starts blooming, but as time progresses even tho they are still large they just aren't as big. As to the question of variety, there are over 8,000 registered variety's of Fuchsia's. We wouldn't even want to speculate what you have even tho one of them sounds suspicially like Marshmallow. We are going to leave this as an open question to anyone who thinks they know. - Don & Betty Jean (Give it your best shot on what variety's Bob & Joyce have) Celia from Wales asks: I have bought a standard fuchsia (as a present for my husband) but have no idea how to keep it over the winter. I have looked in several gardening books but the only info is regarding producing a standard not maintaining it. Last years standard is now a bush! Hope you can help. Thank you Answer: Celia, What you call a standard we call a tree fuchsia. The only way we would know as to maintain it would be to either put it in your greenhouse if you have one or winter it over dormant in a cool dark room were it wont freeze. You would need to give it just a little water once and in a while. Bring it out once the weather starts turning nice and let it regrow its top branching for the standard or tree effect. It appears that your climate is good for Fuchsia's as a permanent planting, but will freeze back to the ground for the winter. It is very important that your fuchsia is put to bed in the winter with lots of moisture. A heavy mulching before freeze is also necessary. Come spring when you see the first sign of growth from the ground select one good growth and attach it to a stake. Remove all of the other growth so that you don't end up with another bush. Train this one growing branch to the height you want and then let the top growth grow as branches. Keep any side growth that continues to want to grow snipped off. Your new top growth needs to be reguarly pinched just like a basket to produce a good strong head which will then support your flower buds. Fuchsia's love compost, make sure you side dress your fuchsia a couple of times a year with good rich organic compost. They are also heavy feeders. Regular feedings with a good well balanced fertilizer will do wonders for your plant. Water, water, water is the key during hot weather. Let us know how this works for you. - - Don & Betty Jean (If anyone else has any additional advice let us know.) |
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