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Answers to your gardening questions |
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Complimentary Copy of "Keys to the Garden Gate" Five-part article series on flower-drying starts here Eight-part article series on vegetable gardening starts here Asian
Lily Beetles Japanese
Beetles An
effective Deer Fence! |
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Fuchsias - Getting
more out of 'em!
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Welcome through Fred’s Garden Gate! Probably like you, I’ve had to tighten the ‘ol financial belt since most of us began feeling the pinch of higher prices for everything. And that definitely will include how much—and where—most of us will spend on plants for both the garden and the front porch or patio this coming spring. During the last few weeks you read about squeezing more life and longevity from holiday-type plants. Now let’s wring a little more out of the flower-dollar by showing you not only how to produce a gorgeous fuchsia basket from tiny growing tips of someone else's, but how to get the same plant comfortably through winter to decorate the outdoor patio or porch year after year. (It’s correctly pronounced: FOOK-see-uh; more commonly, FEW-shee-uh, if you prefer.) Old timers called Fuchsia ladies’ eardrops because of their delicate and colorful earring-like shape and pendulous attitude. Hybridized from native types of Mexico, southern Chile and Argentina, fuchsias are ideally suited to hanging baskets because of their high volume of color and drooping habit, and have become one of the favorites for summer. Grown indoors, they need really bright light. Outdoors on the deck or porch, they’ll look better with some morning sun, but solid afternoon shade during the hottest, brightest part of the day. They actually prefer cooler temperatures – in the range of about 70F – and cooler nights during active growth and bud formation. When daytime temps push 80F, they usually stop flowering altogether. Fuchsias soak up a lot of plant food while they’re actively growing and producing flowers. Any good balanced liquid fertilizer (one that has all the formula numbers about the same) applied every couple of weeks will keep them looking their best. Ok...now let’s get our fuchsias through winter. As the season leans in the direction of fall, begin to reduce watering and back way off on the fertilizer while it prepares itself for a winter rest period. Don’t even think about forcing it to continue growing and blooming indoors in a sunny window. Neither you nor the plant will like it. Be sure to clean it up and cut it back to about six-inch stubs. Really. Bring it back indoors before serious threat of frost. Hang it up in a cool (45F to 50F) basement and check it every couple of weeks during winter, adding only enough water to keep it from drying out. It won’t need any light during the resting period. As spring approaches – about mid-March – bring it back upstairs into a well-lit location, check it closely for any signs of insects or other problems, and resume normal watering. Wait until new growth appears, take it out of its container, shake most of the old, exhausted soil off its roots and re-pot it in the same or slightly larger basket with fresh, new potting soil. Here’s a critical next step: Pinch, pinch, pinch! Every time a new shoot has developed two fresh sets of leaves, pinch out the growing tip. Every time. Do that until you’ve pinched the entire plant a minimum of three times. That’ll make it fuller and, when you hit it with a liquid blossom-booster (high middle number) plant food in early summer, it’ll explode into a blaze of glorious color! As soon as the thing is loaded with buds, resume normal feeding with the balanced fertilizer, take it outdoors after all danger of spring frost and, as the next fall approaches, go back to the top of the list of “to-dos.” Fuchsias are super easy from cuttings. Take 5” or 6” growing tips, remove the bottom few leaves, stick them into a mix of half fresh peatmoss and half perlite or clean sharp sand. Keep it moist and covered with a plastic baggie (not in direct sunlight) and in about 3 or 4 weeks you’ll have roots enough to move it to a container of potting soil. Pinch as instructed above. Then pinch again. And again....and you’re off and running with what will be a magnificent blooming plant by mid-summer. Who knows? You might find yourself growing fuchsia basket for friends or family...or to sell! It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened! |
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