I love fuchsias!

Alistair Nicol

June 2008: There are times when I have to admit I'm beginning to sound like a perennial grumpy old man.

There I was, bemoaning the cost of the not-so-fantastic fuschias I had ordered through the post, when a wander through the borders unearthed a surprising number of old hardy favourites showing enthusiastic signs of growth.

There was 'Achievement', 'Dollar Prinzessin', 'Whiteknights Pearl', and yes, Fuchsia 'Grumpy', all far enough forward to allow at least half-a-dozen cuttings. The date was May 10. I know, because that's the date on the plant labels now heralding the dawn of my latest fuchsia whirl.

Considering many of my purchased samples were showing little sign of survival, I decided that there was no time to lose.

Fuchsia 'Achievement'

Experience has taught me that the quickest way to get fuchsias to root is not in conventional potting compost, but through a system I picked up many years ago from fuchsia guru Ken Pilkington.

Take an old ice-cream tub, or cut off the bottom 10cm (4in) of a large plastic milk bottle. Fill to the brim with perlite and fill with tepid water. Take a 5cm (2in) cutting, trim off all side shoots with sharp scissors and refresh in water. There should be about 6-8mm (½in) of stem below the bottom node. Simply insert the cutting into a hole created by a dibber, or blunt pencil, and firm in from the side. The closer together the cuttings the better!

I placed three containers containing about 40 cuttings on a seed tray, covered them with a clear plastic lid, popped it under the bench in the greenhouse and forgot about it. Until yesterday. Imagine my delight when I forked out the first cutting to find a decent clump of root. Then another, and another. A one-hundred percent success rate was more than I had hoped for – forty fuchsias for the price of a few handfuls of perlite.

'Peppermint Candy'

At this point I was faced with the dilemma of producing quantity or quality. Should I pot up my cuttings individually or go for a Pilkington-style, ten-in-a-pot champion? There was never any doubt.

Over the many years I have been growing fuchsias, all my best displays have come through multi-potting. Start off as many as you get, cram into a 5-8cm (2-3in) pot, and stand back and be amazed how well they thrive compared to single plants. Anything from five to 13 (if you can fit them in) will produce stunning specimens in the first year for the border or the showbench.

In about three weeks time, when the roots have filled the pot, simply re-pot, no more than an inch bigger each time, until you have a 15cm (6in) pot of glorious colour by early August.

The beauty of multi-potting is that there is no need to pinch out or trim to create a good shape, with five or more plants growing in all directions it's already guaranteed! Keep the plants well watered, especially in hot weather, but avoid overwatering as fuchsias love free-draining compost.

'Swingtime'

My own favourite mix consists of five handfuls of good quality compost, a handful of grit sand, a handful of perlite and a sprinkling of Growmore. Feed regularly with Miracle Grow or Phostrogen at the recommended rate and add a capful of a seaweed-based supplement every two or three feeds.

The weather north of the border has been sweletering of late, so I've placed my cherished home-grown beauties outside on a raised shelf in a sheltered spot, well out of reach of slugs and snails. The mother plants, incidentally, have benefitted greatly from their early 'pruning' and I'm tempted to repeat the exercise in the next couple of days, if only to see if you really can produce a good flowering specimen from a June cutting!

When winter comes, I simply plunge my hardy specimens into a spare corner and cover with a few handfuls of compost to help protect the roots. Come next spring, I'll dig them, re-pot and start all over again. Don't feel so grumpy now.

2. Never leave a potted fuchsia in the sun for too long. They can stand it for an hour or two, if temperatures aren't too high, but they much prefer partial shade. If the plant is accustomed to the sun from the start and has an unrestricted root run in the border, they do quite well in the sun, but partial shade is better!

3. Potting up: The new pot should be about half or one inch larger than the previous. Take the plant out of the old pot. Fill the bottom of the new pot with your compost mixture and place the old pot in the middle and fill the space with soil. Help the new soil to settle by tapping the pot on the table. Remove the old pot and let the plant slide into the hole. Water lightly. This method is very gentle to the roots, and fairly quick. When potting up a plant or a cutting, NEVER press the soil/compost with your hands. Just let the watering firm the soil/compost, that's enough.

4. After years of trial and error, I began to wonder why some plants did better than others. Then I noticed that the compost on the plants that were performing better seemed to be looser and more porous. The compost in the ones that were lagging behind was compacted and heavier. I remembered that after potting up I had really soaked two or three plants that had become compacted this way, but that I had used just a trickle of water from my small watering can on the ones that were doing well. So the answer seems to lie in the way we water. The sheer weight of a lot of water is forcing the compost down into the pot and squeezing out the air. Now I take my time to water, always in the morning, just adding a little at a time and allowing it to sink in before repeating the process two or three times. Misting your plants regularly or standing the pots in a tray of damp sand also helps to maintain a high humidity, which they love!

5. Your compost mixture is vital to good growth. The lighter the mixture the better. I use four parts compost, one part grit sand and one part Perlite. The addition of the sand and the Perlite aid drainage and water retention, which are vital to healthy growth.

6. What colour of pot should you use for potted fuchsias? Any colour except black! Black plastic pots are dangerous! When the sun hits the pot it heats instantly to scorching temperatures and kills the roots.

7. Feed your fuchsias with a weak solution every time you water, rather than giving a regular strength solution now and then.

9. Did you know that all fuchsias are edible? Flowers, leaves, berries – ripe or not. I'm told that you can even make jam out of the ripe berries from Fuchsia 'Phyllis'!

10. Overwintering can be a problem, but anywhere you can keep potatoes or apples all winter through, without them freezing or shrivelling, is a perfect place to keep your dormant fuchsias too.

11. Growing new varieties from seed can be extremely interesting and you never quite know what you'll get, although often the plants are not as good as the 'mother'. An easy way to find out if a seed will germinate is to take the seeds carefully from the ripened berry and put them in a glass of water. The seeds that sink are the good ones and can be sown immediately. But with 8000 hybrids already out there, do you really need another one?

12. Over-watering can sometimes lead to the acidification of the peat component in the compost and the plants grow weak and lighter. One way of telling is the acidic smell from the compost. Here's a tip from an old fuchsia grower:'In these cases, use of chalk as a suspension in the water for two to three days often helps. Sometimes the effect is dramatic and the plant starts to grow and look healthy. The chalk (calcium carbonate) is very finely ground. Use about 200 grams (a handful) for 10 litres of water. Stir it and let it stand for about five minutes to let the coarser particles settle. This leaves a milky suspension, which should be used immediately, otherwise it must be stirred/settled again. Use for two to three days and see the difference. Don't overdo it because the compost will become too alkaline and that's just as bad.'

See more of Al's garden on the Gallery.