Fuchsias

Fuchsias were one of the things in the garden I grew up with, so I tended to think of them (I think it was the solidly reliable 'Beacon' variety) as rather ordinary everyday plants. It was only as an adult, after a break from them, that I came to love and appreciate the delicate exoticism of the hardy varieties, and the cheerful blowsiness of the showier ones. Also, they are one of the few plants I can propagate. I have roughly forty different plants in my not very large garden, and  that includes eight different varieties of fuchsia; some small in pots, and some threatening to take the place over.

As I have no idea what any of them is called, I've created an index of photos and given each a letter, so that I'll be able to identify my cuttings. And here are those that were in flower last week when I photographed them.

The first two are from cuttings brought from Newhaven, the second one originally from when the man over the road was trimming his and we picked some bits up off the pavement. It's hardy and will grow massive given the chance. The top one is possibly my very favourite. Again it grows very big, but has the most delicate flowers.

These next two are plants I bought in Tescos a couple of years back. They've never got very big, but cuttings I took from them in the spring seem to be doing OK.

In a pot I have two fancier, double and trailing ones. These are also from Newhaven cuttings and arrived with me via Braunston a few years back. We had to put them in the shade of the hedge every afternoon. Now it's the frost getting them that worries me, so I tuck them up against the house and wrap them up for the winter. The other one is darker but didn't have any flowers last week.

And finally, the monster. This was from the garden centre in 2019. It was a faitly well-established plant then, but has grown madly since, and in quite a sprawly way. I'm planning to cut it back hard this year (which will require a saw) and I'm pretty confident it will recover. It's other main feature is that its leaves are a very bright green, almost yellow when new, in contrats to the others' darker leaves. Being as it's so vigorous, I planned to take a lot of cuttings to put in troughs in the front garden next year.  Sometimes I pot cuttings up straight away, and sometimes I root them in water. I put these in water, and not only did they not root, they were all dead within a few weeks, all at once. I have never known that to happen before. So I'm a bit mystified by that but there's plenty more where they came from so I'll try some more in water and some in pots.