What is the name of the first Fuchsia you ever had?

17 years ago

My first Fuchsia was Lolita, the colour of the corolla when it first opened was such a lovely shade of blue. Then there was Sampan, then Shelly Lynn and then, and ,and, and, that was in the late 1960's AND I'm still hooked. This old gal is addicted to them.

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Comments (6)

kendra2003
17 years ago
My first fuchsia was a Gartenmeister Bonstedt. I started with it because I love the hummingbirds. Now I love the fuchsia as well. These beauties are indeed addictive. I am overwintering about 10 different varieties this year.
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
Original Author
17 years ago
Hi Kendra,

Bet you can't keep it down to 10 varieties, I keep telling myself that's enough you can't have any more, then my eyes glaze over when I get my hands on the new Fuchsia lists and I'm a goner. I'm growing about 200 varieties. I think I need to go for therapy.

A......
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rain1950
17 years ago
Swingtime, of course! I don't count them anymore. Last summer fell in love with the eclyandra cultivars; just so dainty. Have many of the hardy types and have began noticing new growth on the ones overwintered. Found a new hardy last year; Rose Quartet, unusual as it holds it's blossoms upright.
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
Original Author
17 years ago
Hi rain,

I bought 'Rose Quartet too, I didn't know it was hardy. I'll have to experiment with one in the garden. If it is, BONUS! I have just started with the hardies, planted Hawkshead two years ago and have noticed that it's starting to sprout. In my opinion there still isn't a red and white that can beat Swingtime. And your favorite Fuchsia is?

A......
granjan
17 years ago
Mine was Swingtime too. And my favorite is Black Prince. And I love all the other ones in between!
atash
17 years ago
Plain old Fuchsia magellanica.

Every morning I took a ferry from where I lived to the town where my community college was located. Every day I walked across an old part of town. One yard I passed had a huge specimen of Fuchsia magellanica that I admired. One day I found it in a heap on the sidewalk. The owner had chopped it back severely and threw the branches in a heap on a public sidewalk. I picked up a branch, and as soon as I got to school, I wrapped it in a wet paper towel. An older classmate (I was all of 16) showed me how to take cuttings off of it. I rooted them in river sand and most of them took.

28 years later, Fuchsias taken from that original branch still live in various locations of Seattle where I have lived. I did NOT take it the last time I moved, because I have a random seedling of something that showed up in my yard, that I like better because its wood is a little hardier to hard freezes. Its flowers are smaller, but the sepals more spreading. It's just another variety of F. magellanica, that happens to look a lot like F. 'Riccartonii' which is almost certainly one of its ancestors. It is the offspring of a "hybrid" type that reverted.

I tend to like older, vigorous, big-flowered "passalong" types (now no longer in general trade), flowers with particularly striking or unusual (as long as it's tasteful I suppose) colors, extreme hardies that don't freeze back (so that I can use them as part of my garden "framework"), and interesting and varied species types. It's colder here than coastal California, I do not have a greenhouse, and I do not have time to trench them in so they have to be shrub types and they have to be reasonably coldhardy (to my USDA z8b). I do not train my Fuchsias so I prefer varieties with sturdy, wiry stems.

My wife likes "Beacon" for its flower shape and "xSpeciosa" for its attractive, lush foliage. She hasn't seen F. boliviana var alba splendens yet, and I think she will really like that one. 'Celia Smedley' is striking with its candy-pink sepals and vermillion petals. Some of my newer species like F. denticulata have interesting color combos. I like 'Billy Green' for its Triphylla type flowers on something that is root-hardy here (the only Triphylla type I know of that will overwinter here). The flowers are a sort of hot rosy pink that really stands out; and it's been a good bloomer.

It took me a LONG time to find Madame Cornellison, and I am sorry to say that contrary to descriptions it is not very vigorous anymore. Mine never exceeds about a foot tall, and freezes back mostly. It probably used to be vigorous--over a hundred years ago (it's old). I think it has been propagated vegetatively too long. I would love to have a seedling with the color combo--basically a magellanica type with red sepals and white corolla--but more vigorous (I want something shrubby). The reverse might look even more striking: white sepals and red corolla.