Yes. Fuchsias. Not Fushias. Named after the renowned German botanist Leonhart Fuchs (Fooks) should help you to remember how to spell it. I know, I am a pedant, but it really annoys me when people and even nurseries get the name wrong. I have always loved fuchsias from being a small girl. I think it may stem from the numerous fairy stories I used to read. The flowers look like dainty bells hanging down or ballerinas in tutus or simply elegant ear-rings. I know I have a somewhat vivid imagination. Those fairy tales. I have always grown them, leaving behind a particularly precious (given to me as a cutting by my father) and rather large shrub when I moved in with the current OH. I did however take cuttings and grew them on in my next garden. Move number two and a couple of those were dug up and potted on and taken with us. Somewhere between moves three and six my fuchsia got lost / died so I started again with a cutting from my mother in law’s garden. To that very ordinary fuchsia (red and purple, single flower) I have added several more tender varieties over the years, most of which died off during the cold winters (having had nowhere to shelter them) though one or two managed to survive. This year I have bought several new very small plants – all hardy varieties – and have been potting them on during the summer as they grew. I have been delighted to see all of them in flower. And a bonus is that the S&S tend to leave them alone. Let’s have a look at six of them this Saturday:
- Fuchsia ‘Alice Hoffman’. This is a reliable hardy fuchsia with bronze-tinged foliage and small semi-double flowers with rose-red sepals and tubes and a white corolla.
- Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’. A magellanica type with green tipped white flowers. Looks like a snowdrop. I am astonished at how many flowers have appeared on this very small plant.
- Fuchsia ‘Tom Thumb’. Another common one, but fully hardy and flowers prolifically as these photos show. A single flower with carmine pink sepals and mauve-purple corolla.
- Fuchsia ‘Genii’. This has bright yellow leaves which contrast nicely with the elegantly curved sepals in cerise, cerise tubes and a reddish-purple corolla.
- Fuchsia ‘Beacon Rosa ‘. An all pink affair with single flowers.
- Fuchsia ‘ La Campanella’. This is a tender variety and shares a pot with a Pelargonium so has been brought inside for the winter months. I really should extricate her from this pot and give her her own space as she is a very pretty flowering fuchsia. The attractive semi-double flowers feature white tubes and pink-white sepals with deep purple corolla that changes to light violet as it matures.
Next year all these shrubs will be going into pots for the north-facing courtyard garden where I hope they will be very happy.
If you really want to see some interesting fuchsias then please pop over to Jim’s site where he has many more of these underrated shrubs.
See here for the participant’s guide.
Cornwall in Colours 
I like fuchsias too (checks spelling obsessively) – I didn’t know how they got their name before, makes sense to have changed to a soft sh in the middle though!
And the reason it is misspelled I suppose.
I have two lovely hardy ones, both from my Dad who was so good at growing by email he even grew standards. I think one is Tom Thumb but the other no idea!
“hardy” is relative! 😅 That said, I think my favourite is ‘La Campanella’. Gorgeous!
Which is why I shall be keeping these small plants indoors if the weather turns cold!
Beautiful flowers. As kids my siblings and I would pop the buds of the fuchsia in our front garden. We’d get told off but still do it again! Oddly enough I’ve never tried it on my own fuchsia.
I remember doing that too!
Both the Auckland Wintergardens and my new favourite Bason Garden in Whanganui grow a few different varieties of fuchsia and it is one of the great small pleasures in life to see them. Lovely photos Jude — and a useful lesson in naming, spelling and growing. Though I may continue to enjoy these lovelies vicariously 😀
You have a rather nice native NZ one too 🙂
Fuchsia excorticata, commonly known as tree fuchsia, New Zealand fuchsia and by its Māori name kōtukutuku.
Thanks for that Jude. I’ve just looked it up and learned native birds love it (and the berries are edible apparently). I even have a place in my garden where one might grow …
Nice peeling bark too.
Ooh. That’s probably good for paper-making 🙂
Ahem… and smoking. Apparently.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503444&objectid=11014074
So funny. But “roll-your-owns” aside, I am really keen to have one of these trees. Our kowhai and manuka attract tui and kereru and fantails, so anything else I can plant to feed the tui will be welcome. 🙂
Made me smile too! Interesting what Google turns up 🙂 If we had tui birds here I would be trying to entice them into the garden, they are lovely.
They are — and noisy. Their song is really complex and interesting, but they also make a huge wooshing noise when they fly. Kereru do the same — maybe more so. There is a kowhai tree outside the Big T’s office window that they all seem to like and it can be quite freak when they arrive in it.
Fuchsias are a favourite of jack’s too and in NZ he had a great collection of them grown from cuttings. He used to pinch small snippets of ones he liked where ever he saw them 😱🤫 and he was very successful at propagating them. I love them too and these are beautiful photos Jude another plant I cannot grow here
They are such pretty plants but I’ve never had any success with them. I think though, unlike yours and the cold conditions, it’s too hot and dry for them here. We saw some absolute beauties at Butchart Gardens.
Yes, they don’t like heat. I thought I had lost several of my old ones in the snow, but all except one came back. None have flowered as yet though.
Thanks for your lovely post on fuchsias. I used to love growing them when I lived in a temperate climate. I imagine there must be heat tolerant varieties I could have here. I will look next time I’m in the nursery
I get the impression that they do not tolerate heat. You will need to move to Tasmania or New Zealand!
Great value plants, I have one of the tiny flowered varieties and it has flowers for about 9 months of the year.
The Fuchsia microphylla? I have one ‘Cornish Pixie’ so very dainty. I planted it in the Belfast sink, but it seems that it will grow quite a bit taller than I thought so I shall move it into a pot of its own soon.
As with earlier comments, even under the porch shade they don’t tolerate late summer heat too well. I do love them.
You can share mine 🙂
Thanks.