FUCHSIA HYBRID VARIETIES. 1*71 



any extent required, and if the pot fill with roots, it should be turned 

 out early in spring, have the ball reduced, prune in the roots, and be 

 repotted . 



All the kinds do well when grown in the open ground. We have 

 succeeded admirably with upwards of seventy. A well enriched 

 sandy loam is most suitable. In such a soil, the frost does not affect 

 the plants as when grown in a strong loam. 



Well established woody plants should be planted out, with balls 

 entire, early in May. If an entire bed of them, the strongest growing 

 kinds should be planted at the centre, and the arrangement of the 

 whole be so that they regularly decline to the outside. By such 

 attention they appear to advantage. The very rapid extension of the 

 numerous fibrous roots causes the plants to require a very free supply 

 of water in the growing season, and the more vigorous the greater the 

 profusion of flowers. 



Early in November the entire bed should be covered to the depth 

 of six inches with dry leaves, and a small portion of soil be spread 

 over in order to prevent them being scattered by the wind, and it 

 contributes to keep the leaves in a dry state. This kind of protection 

 for the roots is the best we have seen adopted ; by it any of the 

 Fuchsias are preserved from injury at the roots, even F. arborea, and 

 F. fulgens. 



The plants should remain undisturbed till the beginning of April, 

 when all dead portions of the shoots should be cut away, or be cut 

 close down. In mild winters we have seen well ripened shoots three 

 or four feet long remain without injury, and thus the bushes attained 

 a proportionate height the following season. The lateral shoots, 

 however, pushing from them, do not grow as long and vigorous as 

 new shoots which proceed from the ground. It is an injurious prac- 

 tice to cut the Fuchsia down before winter, even should the usual 

 protection over the roots be given ; as the sap, being in circulation 

 even then, oozes out at the wounds, and weakens the plant, so that, 

 if it even survive the severities of winter, it will only bloom weakly 

 the following season. We have seen numerous instances where, from 

 premature cutting down, the roots have perished. When plants thus 

 cultivated have pushed shoots about half a yard long, a shoot may be 

 bent down to the ground ; tongue them as done to a carnation, and 

 peg the branch down to some fine soil ; in a month the young twigs 



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