Fuchsia from Autumn Cuttings

Fuchsia from Autumn Cuttings

Louise

Fuchsias root very easily and it a simple matter to take cuttings both to increase your stock of plants and to protect them from winter losses.

Cuttings in September & October from Semi-hardwood.

  • I think this is the best method for those without a heated greenhouse.
  • Cuttings are taken late in the season when the bark has started to harden and ripen.
  • Select side shoots 6-10″ long and pull them off with a heel. A heel is a bit of the main stem attached to the base of the cutting.
  • Insert the cutting with 4-5 others in a 4″ pot
  • If growing several pots of cuttings plunge the pots into a tray of sand to keep them evenly moist and frost free.

Summer Cuttings from Green Tips

  • Select cuttings 3″ long with two or three pairs of leaves.
  • Cut the shoot just below the point where the lowest leaves join the stem. Trim off the 2 lower leaves and pot 2″ apart.
  • If taken in July, pot on the rooted cutting before winter. Do not worry if they loose there leaves in winter they will regrow from February.

Spring Green Tip Cuttings

  • Similar to summer cuttings they should be treated in the same way.
  • Pot on as soon as rooted in about 2-4 weeks.
  • Keep in gentle heat, shade from sun and gradually ventilate.
  • Stop the plants at 4 pairs of leaves to get bushy growth and flowers from June and the rest of summer.

Short Tip Cuttings in Heat January – March

  • This is the method used by our local nursery.
  • Overwintered plants are pruned by removing all green shoots. Then syringed with tepid water once a day to induce dormant buds on the old wood to shoot.
  • When new shoots have 3 pairs of leaves take the cutting leaving one pair of leaves behind.
  • Pot in a 3″ pot with 2-3 other cuttings and place in a propagator.
  • After rooting 10-14 days very gradually allow air to circulate.

London 2000

More Fuchsia Cutting Tips

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Massed Bands of Flowers

Massed Bands of Flowers

I think some of the best garden displays come from a mass of the same plant grouped together. I don’t often practice what I preach being a well known doter-in who squeezes plants into a small space.

These black viola  ‘ Molly Sanderson’  look almost black when clumped together and the light is bright. The plants self seed and last for a few years.

Your massed plants do not need to be in the ground, a group of pots can get a vibrant display together. It is an opportunity to experiment with colour matches and variety.

Perhaps given the ‘massed bands’ title I should have shown some trumpet flowers!

Successful Upgrade to My Compost Bins

Successful Upgrade to My Compost Bins

You can see photographs of my former compost bins in an  old 2014 post

I just updated the introduction as follows ‘5 years ago our council  provided a brown bin for garden waste. Shortly after they introduced a charge to have the bin emptied.  Larger branches, gnarled roots and diseased wood  now goes in this bin’.

Improved Bins for Better Compost

  • Keeping the heat of decomposition within the pile speeds up my composting.
  • A large bin helps me keep the garden tidier.
  • I am encouraged to make more compost and tip far less.
  • Green household waste also goes in the new bins.
  • The bins content tends to get a bit dry despite the rain drops you see. So I add water and comfrey leaves/juice.
  • The lower openings intended for shoveling out the compost tend to get a bit clogged and thus I empty by opening the whole side.
  • The black bin is smaller and was bought for slow to rot rubbish and composting/rotting down leaves. This years luxuriant growth has taken over and the more I spread compost the more compost I generate (Thanks Les Barker)

Hardy Varieties of Fuchsias

Hardy Varieties of Fuchsias

fuchsia

Once established hardy Fuchsias need little maintenance. Growing outdoors they lose their foliage after frost and branches may or may not die back. However in spring they will send up fresh strong growing branches from the base or existing branch frameworks.
A big advantage of growing in the ground is that the unrestricted root run can produce an extremely  floriferous plant.

All the varieties we have selected below have the RHS AGM award.

Hardy Fuchsia Tips

  • Trim them back in late April not after flowering so that the twigs will protect the crowns from frost.
  • Spring pruning allows you to assess how fiercely you want to prune. Hard for a compact bush, gently for a larger shrub.
  • Generally having survived one winter Fuchsias will be successful for many years. All those below have been known to survive 5 years plus in the UK.
  • Give Fuchsias a slow release fertiliser in spring after cutting back. Then an occasional watering if they are very dry is all the other treatment needed.
  • Hardy Fuchsias come in a range of sizes, colours and shapes.

Smaller Hardy Fuchsias 1- 3 Feet Tall

  • Son of Tom Thumb with carmine and red flowers
  • Alice Hoffman with rose and white flowers and bronze tinged leaves.
  • Chillerton Beauty a vigorous grower with pale pink and violet flowers.
  • Conspicua deep red and white eye catching flowers
  • Dollar Prinzessing 18 inches tall with double flowers.
  • Genii with lime -yellow foliage and red stems but late flowering.
  • Heidi Ann less hardy but magnificent
  • Rufus the Red grows 24-30″ tall

Hardy Fuchsias 1- 3 Feet Wide

  • Annabel pink and white flowers on a trailing habit.
  • Empress of Prussia introduced in 1860
  • Garden News double flowers and surprisingly hardy.
  • Phyllis vigorous large leaved abundantly flowering plant
  • Mrs Popple introduced 1899 so it is a survivor.

Other Hardy Fuchsias

  • Hawkshead with white flowers and tall growing 3’plus.
  • Margaret Brown strong growing with smaller flowers.
  • Celia Smedley cream and flame coloured flowers on a strong plant
  • Species Fuchsia magellanica Whiteknights Pearl
  • Fuchsia magellanica ‘Aurea’ has bright golden foliage  with pendants of deep magenta

fuchsia

Books on Fuchsias from Amazon

Winter Gardening

Winter Gardening

What can gardeners do in winter? The answer lies in the soil! but to old gardeners it is still ‘Beyond our Ken’. I often spent too long polishing my good intentions this includes planning to send my mower for servicing and sharpening’ a shame I do not plan to polish up my other important gardening implements.

Winter Preparations

  • In the spirit of new years resolutions you would expect my garage and shed to be perfect models of tidiness and order
  • Winter prune trees and plan other tree work. Get an arboriculturalist to do the hard and technical work
  • Clear the garage, garden shed and store areas. I have a glory hole where an old coal hole was under some outside stairs. It should be renamed gory hole as the stairs now allow water to penetrate.
  • I still store pots by the score together with sundry bulk items I may or probably wont use again.
  • Use the opportunity for testing my good ideas, bodges and purloined ideas from other gardeners
  • Store garden furniture and frostable item.

 

Sorry about this post but I have just been clearing out some old drafts – now back into the garden.

Funny Quotes for Gardeners

Funny Quotes for Gardeners

  • All those weeds – so little thyme
  • My plants are not dead they are just sleeping
  • Gone to pot
  • Gardeners on average eat 50 pork pies a month – first time I’ve been above average on anything
  • Gardeners know all the dirt
  • Summer is set in with all it’s usual severity
  • I am Julian and this my friend sandy
  • I could give up gardening but I’m no quitter
  • Where there’s muck there’s brassicas
  • Before they made Alan Titchmarsh they broke the mould ( groucho Marx)
  • The answer lies in the soil
  • You can’t have everything I mean where would you put it
  • Sweat peas and whirled peas
  • You can’t improve on nature unless you can get it to look at the pictures on seed packets
  • If you want it to rain water your garden
  • To tell a flower from a weed pick it and if it grows again back it is a weed
Organic Tips from America

Organic Tips from America

Our transatlantic cousins still benefit from the Pilgrim fathers gardening knowledge taken to their shores centuries ago. The potato famine of 1845-50 caused Irish farmers to discover the Idaho potato. Now these and other horticultural favours can be returned by this book of organic homespun tips.

Book Cover

On the other hand did we contribute to the Hamburger and KFC? (That is kale, fennel and cauliflower). In return we got a Turkey!

Brambles or Blackberries Is it Just a Name

Brambles or Blackberries Is it Just a Name

It is not a question of which name but Brambles and Blackberries should be thought of together as one is the fruit of the other.Looking carefully at this picture you can see young unopened buds at the top center with some flowers that have been pollinated and begun to show nascent green fruitlets which will turn into blackberries when they swell and ripen.

As with many fruit there is much in the breeding and plant selection and I recommend checking the availability of various selections 

Wild Brambles

  • Hedgerows and uncultivated land can become home to robust plants. They are often treated as weeds as for gardeners they have invasive tendencies.
  • Long stems or branches often overflow on to paths and the thorns or spines can catch the unwary.
  • Plants growing in sunshine can provide a large crop of fruit
  • Bramble jelly used to be made from wild collected blackberries.
  • In my opinion they make a good flavoursome crumble or mix well with apples in a fruit tart.
  • Flowers attract a range of bees and wasps which is essential for pollination.

What use are Daylilies?

What use are Daylilies?

Hemerocallis also called Daylilies

These are a popular perennial that can grow to 2 – 4 foot depending on variety and location. It dies back in winter only to regenerate with fresh green strappy, arching leaves in spring. The plant forms good clumps which can be split when they get too large.

Daylilies have a profusion of short lived flowers sometimes only lasting a day as the name implies. So many flowers are produced that there is a continual supply and each blossom bear close inspection as well as offering a good all round display. They normally flower from June to August.

  • Daylilies have given a wonderful show this year!
    Hemorocallis is a plant to look out for and to add to your collection.
  • For those who want a colourful display with lush foliage I can recommend Daylilies

Special uses of Daylilies

    • Plant them close to daffodils to help hide the dying foliage.
    • The plants like water so it is possible to use them by streams or in a bog garden using varieties such as Hemerocallis aurantiaca, (orange) Hemerocallis citrina and Hemerocallis minor a dwarf yellow plant with scented flowers.
    • The flowers are edible and can be added to salads or dried for use in soups
    • The latest new introductions will be more expensive when new but if successful will be available more cheaply in seasons to come
    • I grow Hyperion a yellow flower and want to try some bi-coloured plants like Franz Hals or Flore Pleno

Several varieties are shown here but many more can be seen on Google.

Daylily Tips

    • Available in many shades of yellow, gold, orange,red and bronze – try some from your trusted local garden centre.
    • Size of plant varies but choose your plant by the flower, its scent and how it is held above the foliage.
    • The plastic coloured identification label may not be true on some cheap plants.
    • It is OK to buy plants in flower as long as you give them plenty of water when planting and in early growth.
    • Propagation by division is easy and the success rate quite high but I don’t make each division too small.
    • Find out more at the Hemerocallis society

Poppy Parade

Poppy Parade

poppy

Poppies are easy to grow, sometimes too easy  because they self sow all over my garden and despite the delicate petals I thought of them as weeds. So much so that I forgot to photograph any earlier this year but now have captured some pictures of perfectly purple poppies.

These poppies were grown from scattered seed and plants are 4 feet tall and are producing lots of single flowers. If they are in the wrong place they are easy to pull straight out of the ground. The roots can be a foot long and carrot shaped but help to anchor the plant.

This is another poppy that is flowering well in my garden at the moment. I like the double flower for the lush petals but they are less use to bees and other insects. …

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