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Help growing Hardy Fuchsia Magellanica

Posted by austin0013 Ohio (My Page) on
Tue, Oct 23, 07 at 19:20

I planted 10 seeds indoors and kept them in a ceramic pot under 85 degree light in my basement for 16 hours a day, and turned off the light for 8 hours at night. It's been 4 weeks and nothing! I have kept the soil moist and continuously sprayed the surface with water as well... What gives?


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RE: Help growing Hardy Fuchsia Magellanica

Do you mean the seed bed hits 85 degrees F? That seems very warm to me, for most Fuchsias.

F. magellanica is native in the Andes, and also along the coast down in southern Chile down as far south as the Straits of Magellan, which have a climate comparable to that of the Alaskan panhandle. Like most Fuchsias, its biochemistry is optimized for cool temperatures. At high temperatures, its chemistry slows down to a crawl which is why Fuchsias get disease prone in the heat and why I answer a lot of questions about "why is my Fuchsia dying" when the weather gets hot (and the answer is always the same...).

Is your seed fresh? I doubt it has long viability. If it's old seed I can probably send you fresh. This was a bad year for Fuchsias on the Pacific Coast but I probably have a few berries ripening on my Magellanica type by now. It's a small-flowered, short-tubed, small-leaved, extra-hardy type probably derived from "Riccartoni" (it looks just like Riccartoni), which, by the way, is almost never the real thing in the USA. It showed up as a volunteer in my garden, probably a chance seedling of a hybrid based on Riccartoni that reverted.


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