Fuchsias were my first love
they took hold of me, paradoxically, in the freezing midwest, inside a dark, windowless science-lab office with only daytime florescent light hung 15 feet in the air ... where they bloomed their sweet hearts out in the middle of winter! *oohs, aahs, and huge happy sighs*
Now that I am in warmer climes, I tried fuchsias as my go-to plants in the garden, but I also had the problem of twice-daily waterings needed just to keep them barely alive in the summer. I put in one highly susceptible species (f. lycioides) to check my heat-and-cold hardy varieties for disease resistance, and while lycioides is always in a constant state of disease from gall mite (yet manages to survive and send out new healthy leaves below each summer's mite-striken ones), none of the resistant plants have ever come down with it. I even planted a cutting of it in with f. var. procumbens with no problems.
The fuchsia that have done well and remained healthy for me in temperature ranges down to 28 degrees (without mulching or doing anything else for them) in winter are:
Amber Rose
Beacon Rosa
Billy
Black Magic
Bobolink
Cameron Ryle
Chaquita Maria
Clashing Beauty
Compos-portoi
Constance
Flash
Fusedia
Galfrey Lye
Grace McCarthy
Iced Champagne
Jack Shahan
Lena
Margaret Roe
Margery Blake
Mini Rose
Molinae
Mood Indigo
Preston Guild
Quasar
Reading News
Rufus
Santa Cruz
Tennessee Waltz
The Aztec
Var. Procumbens
Waltz Jubelteen
Wendy's Beauty
Those that are heat resistant as well as cold-hardy, and did okay-to-good in up to 108 degrees (yet still needed constant watering) in my garden, are:
Cambridge Louie
Cardinal
Delta's Parade
Foxgrove Wood
Garden News
Hermiena
Sharkie
I've finally and reluctantly taken the hardiest and, to me, prettiest ones out of the garden and brought them up to our shady patio as potted plants. I was never able to successfully harvest seed from hybridizations, so with the constant care needs and no chance to experiment with crossed seedlings ... well ... I have turned my active passion over to the daylilies.
But, fuchsia will always be to me the symbol of renewal in the darkest, coldest tunnels (albeit, indoors) bringing the joy of spring into the harshest of seasons ... they are such modest yet exquisite beauties!
