208 
The Garden Magazine, December, 1923 
is a pleasant sight when 
several ruby-throats are 
hovering over the plant at 
the same time, sipping the 
nectar from the delicate 
blossoms which look as 
though designed by nature 
for the special delight of 
this mite of a bird. 
Some of the most arrest¬ 
ing sights at Balboa Park 
are the banks of Fuchsia 
gracilis along driveways, 
wreathed about pergola 
posts, bordering avenues 
and making decorative de¬ 
signs against the wide pan¬ 
els of white walls. It is 
difficult for Eastern visitors 
to believe that the high 
hedges hung thick with deli¬ 
cate blossoms are in fact 
composed of the same plant 
generally grown in pots at 
home. It is no unusual 
sight to see the pendant 
blooms of this climbing 
Fuchsia dripping down 
through the roof of a 
pergola, as though 
it were some new 
kind of Wisteria. 
Among the hy¬ 
brid garden 
forms the fol¬ 
lowing are con¬ 
spicuously fine: 
Arabella, an old 
time favorite with 
its clear pink petals 
and white sepals 
looking like a dain¬ 
tily dressed maid in 
pink gown, is a spe¬ 
cial delight on the 
north side of a house. 
It is gay and bright 
and a profuse bloomer, 
beautifully formed, 
lovely in vases upon the 
table. 
Jupiter with regulation 
fuchsia-red sepals and bril¬ 
liant bluish-purple petals 
which flare out when in full 
bloom making interesting varia¬ 
tion to the usual bell form, shows 
up richly against a house wall 
planted with Begonias. 
Black Prince, another single variety, 
stands the sunshine better than most and is 
therefore good for massed planting at edge of trees 
and along park driveways. It is an almost perpetual bloomer and at times 
reaches a height of eight feet or more though its usual height is about four. 
Monarch is a large-growing red and purple, tall plant, a thrifty grower, while 
Orchid with white sepals lined with rosy red and bright bluish red petals, often 
completely covers a ten-foot wall. 
Phenomenal is one of the most striking of the doubles. It has rosy red 
sepals, very double purplish corolla, very large blossoms which often attain a 
length of two and a half inches and makes one think of a ballet dancer with 
fluffy skirts. Rosy Phenomenal, a sport, differs in color, the choice-looking 
flower having petals of violet purple with rosy streaks. Foliage is also decidedly 
different. There are dwarf purple-petaled varieties like the Miniature 
Phenomenal, fine for pots. The white and double whites have rosy petals, 
while those with red sepals have double and extravagantly double fluted corollas 
which make them also resemble full-skirted dancers ready for a whirl to the 
footlights. Storm King is the best known of the all white varieties but not so 
tall a grower. 
Spectacular indeed is a salmon-colored Fuchsia, Salmon Queen, with sepals 
and petals of same color but one darker than the other, which give it special 
value for special color combinations—an effective grouping being one with this 
Fuchsia for a background, Impatiens Sultana in front of it and the salmon 
tinted tuberous Begonias for a foreground. 
AS FUCHSIAS GROW WEST AND EAST 
Fuchsia gracilis in tumbling masses over the doorway 
of a lath-house owned by General and Mrs. M. O. Terry, 
San Diego, Cal.; and an Arabella type in pot which at¬ 
tracted attention at the New York Flower Show, 1922 
Diamant, one of the largest growers and showing big¬ 
gest blossoms has rosy-red sepals; white petals streaked 
with rose: large seed-pods, longish, like almonds, purplish- 
black in color, lighter at tip; makes a superb showing all 
through the summer. 
There is an Arabella-colored type, new, from Santa Barbara, 
called Refulgens and its long sprays of flowers and seed- 
pods in all stages of ripeness at the same time, make it a 
prime favorite. 
Some of the Western catalogues give a list of 
fifty or more named varieties of single and double 
types and a selection of a dozen or so of the minia¬ 
ture flowered “Baby Fuchsias,” the result of crosses 
on F. Riccartonii and some of the larger flowering types. 
The flowers only are “babyish” for some of the plants 
reach a height of ten feet or so in the northern climates. 
They create a charming fairy effect when planted in north wall 
borders. 
Hybridizers are always looking for plants which bear per¬ 
fected seeds for though most develop seed-pods decorative 
enough to look at, few mature seed that are of any value to the 
grower. F. procumbens, a small plant with drooping habit 
and much in use for hanging baskets, is a conspicuous seed 
bearer and its bright strawberry red berries, the size of hazel 
nuts or small pecans, are as ornamental almost as the blos¬ 
som itself. The old-fashioned F. speciosa is inclined to bear 
seed under favorable circumstances. Its seed-pods are a 
purplish salmon, and the plant itself a tremendous grower 
and prolific bloomer. Fuchsias are seldom grown from seeds, 
the general method of propagating is from soft wood cuttings 
in sand. Some of the commercial new varieties have developed 
as sports. 
