FUCHSIAS - 2017

Hey KFF,

Also have these two plants and Lady Boothby gets up to 6ft and over, but the three original well rooted cutting of Pink Fizz I purchased last year , or cuttings I took from them fail to grow much over one foot high, though they will flower profusely.

Do your Pink Fizz get anywhere near the five foot they say they grow to ?

 

Yikes, why not

 

This is the fuscia I planted last year. I think it could look better.

G.

 

Hi Ricky,

I totally agree . " Pink Fizz " usually ends up at around 12" high. It's not one I would personally recommend to anyone. I'm not even that keen on the flowers , it's just another non - descript pinky colour.

" Lady Boothby " I must admit is one of my favourites, I love the colour. Mine is currently about 3' high with flowers all the way up as when I start it off in Spring I let 2 branches go straight up and pinch out 2 low down. It's a similar method as when growing a " pillar ".

 

How can you tell that two have given up ?

 

They didn't say
I treated them all the same.

 

Because they have gone limp; the 3rd one is perky

 

Hi " M ",

What you have to remember with Fuchsias is that they need a very high humidity rate.

Have you got them covered with a plastic bag ? I use food/freezer bags.

With the two that have failed I would get them out, trim the ends and put them in a glass of water, they should soon perk up .

Fuchsias are also very easy to root in water. They generally take about 2 weeks at this time of year . Then you can just pot them up singly as normal . Remember though that roots formed in water are only " water roots " and are brittle and easy to break off. Once potted up they soon form " feeder roots ".

 

Thank you @KFF

I've got them in my grow house. We've had a lot of rain since I took the cuttings, so they have been protected from all of that and the humidity in there is pretty good right now.
I'll pop the limp ones in water and see if they like me any better for it

 

There was a tip I heard that when you take the cuttings place them into a poly bag of water straight away, and they can stay perfectly ok for up to a couple of hours before potting up, though probably the sooner the better.

Would also be interested to hear / know any views as to which type of cuttings are best, a clean cut of a branch or pulling the small branch off the main stem so it has a heal on it, and its potted up with the heal on.

The thing I find hard to do, is that they say find a suitable piece thats growing and not in bud /flower.
Does it actually make a difference, I just pinch any buds off ..?

 

Can you write your name on the windows? That's the sort of humidity you're after , roughly about 90/95% and constant 24 hours a day.

 

I'll get the freezer bags out

 

Yep I always carry bags with a drip of water around when I'm doing cuttings ( also labels and an indelibubble pen. )

I always do cuttings from fresh soft growth as these have more hormones in them especially around the leaf nodes. Also, by doing heel cuttings you're taking away a whole branches worth of flowering potential. Heel cuttings are fine if you want to start some later on in the year but are very hit and miss.

Carry on just pinching out the flower buds, that's what I've always done.

 

I thought you were the master ( or mistress ) of resurrecting limp things !

( or is that just asparagus )

 

Oh! I see my *handling* of (certain) plants has reached even *your* ears

In my defence ... asparagus does take a certain ... master stroke ... of ... handling

As for the fuchsia "cuttings", a plastic bag for transportation would have been over kill ... there are less than a few steps between the plant and the grow house with pre-prepared pots. I have a small garden now, not the quarter acre I previously experimented on