It is labeled as a Queen Esther hardy fuchsia (no species name), it has a pale pink, almost white, outer flower with a dark purple inner flower. (Sorry, I don't know the proper terms yet.) But the leaves are starting to get black/gray spots and turn yellow, but the colors described for Fuchsia Rust don't seem right. When I got it home it was fine and there was no evidence that it had this problem before (all the leaves look very symmetrical around the stem and it hadn't appeared to have lost a lot of leaves), but it showed up quickly there after.

I am pretty sure it is a fungus. I am not planning to bring it in for the winter. Should I treat it with a fungicide or just let it die back naturally at this point and re-grow next year. Should I do anything to prevent an outbreak next year?

I'm in Zone 8.

Thanks for anything you can share!

Ditto to everything cultural that Kath says (as always) but here is a link that may be of some assistance.

http://www.paghat.com/fuchsiaqueenesther.html

I looked at a couple of Fuchsia Nursery sites here in the UK - one said that it was an upright growing variety and the other describes it as a basket - so we are still no wiser although it appears from the information given in the link it is upright.

Hope to be of help again,

Tight ....

And thank you for that link, I couldn't find anything on the "Queen Esther" and was starting to think I was mad! :)

Originally I had thought it was normal die back, but the thing that had me leaning towards a fungus was that the leaves were splotchy with black/grey. Does this occur with normal die back?

Thanks again!

Pleased that the site was of use to you,

There could be a few reasons for your plants leaves becoming discoloured and showing signs of distress, ranging from under/over watering, becoming chilled, through to the plants natural shedding of old leaves.

I have found another site with information that will, I hope, be helpful to you.

http://www.btinternet.com/~micka.wffps/abnormalities.html

Don't get confused with 'die-back' and the plants natural dropping of leaves or the leaves becoming diseased.'Die back' in your situation means 'dormancy' or 'resting' for the plant - 'die-back' as most growers would recognise it would be the plant actually doing just that, 'dying back' - usually from a cut (either intentionally or not) on the stem of a plant and this turning black or withering and dying.

Hope this helps

Tight ....

And good point on the word choice.

Thanks for the help and information.