FUCHSIA CULTURE 
SOIL—Prepare your soil with one-third organic fertilizer. If soil is heavy, use 
peat moss or sand to loosen it. Make it friable so that you will have proper drainage. 
LOCATION—Fuchsias are a plant for the half-shade. All shade and they will 
become leggy and few blooms. All sun, they will become bronzed and stunted, their 
blooms smaller but more of them. Good locations are, on the east side of the house 
for morning sun, under a tree for dappled sunshine, or a lathe house if you have one. 
Out of the wind, of course, as fuchsias grow very rapidly, consequently have a very 
tender growth. They bloom on the tip—no tip—no blooms. 
TRANSPLANTING—Fuchsias you buy or grow are usually quite small and 
tender as they have been taken out of a greenhouse. Protect them with a newspaper 
or shingle until established. Use Bl or Transplantone to prevent shock of moving. 
Keep pots or baskets, especially, in entire shade until well established. 
DRAINAGE—Give good drainage both in the ground and in pots or cans. A 
fuchsia plant with no drainage will drown very quickly. The young tender ones 
will rot off at the base. 
SUN AND SHADE—Red shades and the common types of fuchsias will stand 
the most sun. More sun—more blooms but smaller. Big purples and whites take 
more shade, and have larger blooms but fewer. On the coast, fuchsias stand sun 
most of the day, if they are out of the wind. 
FERTILIZING—Pile the fertilizer around in the spring as soon as you have 
some good leafy growth. Four inches of cow manure is tops. If you cannot get 
organic fertilizers, use peat moss or your other mulches and then your commercial 
fertilizers, feeding often, always careful to use as directed. In the spring your 
fertilizers should be higher in nitrogen to get the leafy growth desired. Later in 
the spring, add your phosphates to bring out the blooms. Superphosphate is good. 
Just give them plenty of fertilizer. If potted, once a week with liquid fertilizers 
is not too often. Fuchsias can’t keep up their long period of bloom unless they have 
food to go on. 
WATERING—This is THE most important thing to remember about fuchsias. 
Pots and hangers must be watered every day and sometimes twice if the air is dry 
and hot. Water not only the roots but give the foliage and blooms a fine spray. 
Those in the ground just watch that they don’t dry out. When a fuchsia is allowed 
to become dry, their tips will stop growing and the branches harden. (Lack of fer- 
tilizer will cause this also.) It will take you 6 weeks to bring your plant back to 
good condition—if you can do it at all. So—keep your fuchsias well watered. 
CULTIVATING—Don’t just pull the weeds and mulch. Fuchsias have small 
tender white roots which reach up to the surface to get their food. Cut these off and 
the plant will have to grow more before they can get any good out of the fertilizer. 
PRUNING—Fuchsias grow as YOU wish them to grow—not as THEY wish to 
grow. While making their growth, you can tip and cut branches to make them any 
shape you wish, doing it gradually so as not to bleed them too much at one time. 
For the baskets, cut the old growth to the edge of the pot. As the branches grow 
tip and tip again until you have gotten a full leafy crown; then, let the streamers 
grow. For the standards or tree types, pinch off all side shoots until the desired 
height is reached; then, start the tipping process on the top to get the well- 
branched crown. 
CROPPING—Some types of fuchsias crop, that is, have a full burst of bloom 
and are through for awhile. If properly fed they will be growing and will put on 
another burst of bloom. Some do this 3 or 4 times a season. 
PESTS—Fuchsias can become infested by most of the chewing insects. Use a 
preventive program rather than to let your plants become infested before spraying. 
Get your plants from a RELIABLE dealer. Then get a good all-purpose spray and 
use as directed. If you will spray one day and then again three days later, you will 
not have to spray so often as you will get all the bugs that are there. Most sucking 
insects have a three-day incubation period. Thus spraying three days later will 
get the eggs that have hatched from the ones you killed three days before, and 
before THEY have had time to lay eggs. 
WINTERING—You may wish to leave plants in the ground; if so, pile peat moss 
or mulch available around as far as you wish the branches to be saved. Others take 
them up, to save the tops, and lay them in a well-drained trench, covering completely 
with peat and branches. Some use a tarpaulin or lapped boards on top to keep the 
water out of the trench. On the coast, to save the tall ones, we build a frame on 
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