Fabulous fuchsias

Providing shrubby colour to take you through autumn, hardy fuchsias can be used in borders and pots – and make great informal hedges, too, as Camilla Phelps explains

- Camilla Phelps

IT would be entirely possible to fill a garden with fuchsias to keep the colour going until midwinter. You’ll find them in flower from late spring onwards, and in milder areas they might start even earlier and finish as late as December. There are thousands of fuchsia cultivars to choose from and they can be planted any time before autumn.

Fuchsia blooms are quite distinctive, with the typical outer calyx often a different colour to the inner petals and long stamens. With their jewel-like appearance, it’s no wonder that fuchsias are sometimes known as ‘lady’s eardrops’. Although the colour fuchsia pink takes its name from the flower, they range from white through paler pinks to richer rubies and purples. The colour that has eluded breeders so far is yellow.

Flowers vary from long, tubular versions to the bonnet-like hybrids. You are probably familiar with the gaudier, blousy, tender fuchsia varieties, but I feel these have suffered from hanging basket abuse over the years and might have put off potential fuchsia lovers as a result. But don’t let these frilly displays detract from the hundreds of other hardy, shrubby fuchsias that bring months of flowers to the garden, many with a subtlety that has converted me to fandom.