Getting the Best from Your Fuschia

After June Bank Holiday when Bloom is over we always have a surge of customers into the garden centre looking for fuchsia plants thanks to the impressive display they have at the garden festival. The displays at Bloom seem to grab people’s attention and show them just how impressive they can be in a garden setting. 

Fuchsia can often be overlooked for more showy and exciting shrubs. This should not be the case. Fuchsia is a very versatile shrub that can work well in all types of garden. They are an extremely reliable plant that can add great colour and keep flowering for months upon months.

Many will associate fuchsia will the roadside hedges around Ireland. These verses are peppered with the red and purple flowering shrub. While in many cases the fuchsia along roads do look great there is so much more to them. There are different varieties which can add seasonal interest to a garden.

Fuchsia varieties

Fuchsia genii is a rather unusual variety which is in stock at the moment. Genii is a yellow leaf variety which can make a welcome change to the traditional dark green varieties. This variety can work to brighten up a somewhat dark spot in the garden as it does very well in semi shade. The flowers contrast against the bright leaves very well. I have grown this variety in my own garden for over ten years. It is a very reliable plant which I would class as almost evergreen as it keeps its leaves from March right through to October or November, depending on how mild the weather is towards the end of the year. 

For those who enjoy variegated leaves in a garden, Fuchsia “Sunray” is a great investment. It has pink and green variegated leaves and pink flowers. 

Fuschia Sunray with variegated leaves. Source www.davesgarden.comFuschia Sunray with variegated leaves. Source www.davesgarden.com

Container Planting

While many will have fuchsia in their garden as a large shrub many people will use younger Fuchsia as hanging basket or container plants. When planted in the middle of a hanging basket they can add great height to a basket. Their colours tend to work with any planting combination, which makes them very versatile.

Caring for Fushsia

In terms of feeding and caring for fuchsia they require very little work. A good quality tomato feed or seaweedfeed will work wonders on them.

Pest Control

Vine weevil and greenfly are the main two pests to watch out for. They can easily be treated for with pest controls from the garden centre. Vine weevil can be treated with ‘VineWeevilFree – Nematodes’, these are beneficial Nematodes, tiny creatures that are a fantastic natural predator of vine weevil larvae. If you have a problem with greenfly then ladybirds are your best friend, they can eat up to 5,000 greenfly, also called aphids, in their lifetime. You can also use an insecticide like Total Bug Killer which is ready to use and is an organic and natural product.

Double Flowering Varieties

Many gardeners will spend hours out in the garden picking the seed pods off fuchsia to encourage more flowers. This can be a very tedious job depending on the variety and how many seed pods they produce. If you want to avoid this you should go for double flowering varieties which do not produce as many seed pods to begin with.