Fuchsias still going strong

Grey autumnal days are when I most appreciate a few blossoms. Fall is somewhat of an odd time to bloom, because then plants have to try to ripen their seeds right through the middle of winter. There aren't a lot of pollinators available this time of year, either.Bright red, tubular blossoms attract Anna's Hummingbird, which overwinters along the West Coast even as far north as southwestern Canada. It's a tough little hummingbird that looks for trees bleeding sap to feed on while flowers are sparce.

I still have a few flowers it likes, Fuchsias among others. Most of them start blooming in summer, but a few particularly hardy ones that don't freeze back are already blooming by late spring. Fuchsias then obligingly bloom all the way into winter, until the first hard frosts. This year was hot and dry, so they are blooming better now than they did in the summer.

I have a lot of Fuchsias, both hybrids and species. Wild Fuchsias usually come in only a few vivid colors, with scarlet sepals and tube and a deep purple corolla being the most common combination. Hybrids, which sometimes have enormous flowers compared to the species, often come in pastels, and sometimes in unusual shades like pale purple, hot purple, candy pink, raspberry, and even a few salmons approaching orange. The species are the real troopers, though, still blooming heavily while the hybrids are only trickling out an occassional blossom anymore. I'll write more about hybrid Fuchsias when they are at their peak in late summer.

Fuchsia campos-portoi is one of the hardiest of the species. Less vigorous than its better-known Chilean counterpart F. magellanica, it has smaller leaves and flowers but otherwise looks about the same. Doesn't root as easily, unfortunately, so it will probably stay rare in cultivation. F. magellanica itself has a huge range in its native Chile and adjacent areas of Argentina, and surprisingly doesn't vary much except at the extremes. I do have a few distinct forms, including var. molinae, which has pale purplish-pink and mauve flowers and daintier, lighter green foliage than most forms; it also happens to be noticeably hardier than most, never freezing back in Seattle. Visitors to my garden sometimes express amazement that there are Fuchsias that get big enough to walk under; since the wood isn't very strong or long-lived, it never gets bigger than just that. Sometimes I have to prune them to prevent the soft wood from giving under too much weight.

I can't tell the difference between F. hatschbachii and F. regia. Both are clambering species from Brazil that grow long, slender branches reaching up into trees or shrubs for support. Both are quite cold-hardy despite coming from a subtropical climate.

F. thymifolia is one of several similar species from the cloudforests of southern Mexico. Like its close relations, it has tiny blossoms with inconspicuous sepals, a twiggy habit, and fine, almost ferny foliage on a potentially quite large shrub. It occassionally freezes back, but not every winter. Its a tough species, suitable for a number of purposes. You can even grow it in a rock garden as it will take quite a bit of sun once it hardens off.