Fuchsia: description and photo of a room flower, what types of plants can be kept at home, which in the garden, does it bloom in winter and how to care for beautiful fruits and leaves?

Fuchsia is widely known as an indoor ornamental plant, because in addition to its unconditional aesthetic advantages, it is also unpretentious, undemanding to care, and grows well at home.

The flower is named after the memory of the German botanist Fuchs. They also call her a ballerina because of the shape of the petals.

Fuchsia belongs to the cypress, and has almost a hundred varietal varieties. In the wild, fuchsia is found in America, you can see it in Tahiti and in the New Zealand area.

General description and photo

Fuchsia, due to its incredible plasticity, can develop as an ampel or pyramidal type of plant, or you can grow it in the form of a standard tree. Fuchsia branches are very flexible and create something like a cascading crown, tending downward.

The leaves are oppositely growing, bright green, lanceolate or oval in appearance, about five centimeters long, with pointed tips. Each leaf has a serrated border along the edge. Petioles are long, streaked with venation, in the form of thin hollows. The color of both petioles and young stems is slightly reddish. It happens that the foliage leaves in a slightly red tint.

Fuchsia gives the axillary variety, solitary, hanging downward. The structure of the flower is a tubular-shaped bowl, in which four sepals are pointed and strongly bent outward or a corolla in the form of a wide tube with slightly bent petals. Pestle and stamens stick out from under the corolla. Flowers tilted down with bent petals and visible stamens and pestles are like ballerinas.

On a note. Other species resemble bells or miniature lanterns, they are even sometimes called "Japanese lanterns."

Flowers are divided into terry, semi-double and simple. The color can be very different: white, pink¸ purple, cream, blue, orange, purple. It happens that in one flower two or three tones are combined. Pink in fuchsia is so original and beautiful that it even received the same name - fuchsia.

The plant blooms very richly and for a long time, the bright cups of flowers wilt for a long time, tending downward during flowering, and at the final stage they wither. Peduncles are long and flexible.

Look at the photo of how a houseplant grown at home looks and blooms.

Is it possible to eat fruits and inflorescences?

Under natural conditions, fuchsia bears fruit, after the flowers wither, the fruit-berries are tied. They are edible, but at home it is quite difficult to get fruits, regardless of whether they were well cared for or poorly.

Fuchsia flowers are also used in cookingcreating exquisite decorations for dessert dishes and salads.

The story of the "domestication" of fuchsia. At the end of the seventeenth century, a Catholic priest from France, Charles Plumiere, searching for medicinal herbs for malaria, traveling through South Africa, namely in the foothills of Santa Domingo, found small bright flowers. A new species has been recorded, named and described. Fuchsia was first exported from Chile to the European continent at the dawn of the 19th century. The inhabitant of the mountain forests of Central and South America has been adapted to home conditions.

For more than two centuries, hybrid fuchsia varieties have settled in the interiors of people's homes. To date, a huge number of varieties from only a few source species have been bred.

What are the differences between a home plant and other species?

Reference. Home fuchsias are hybrid plants, they are also called in English "Fuchsia hybrid - F. x hybrida".

Hybrid varieties have collected all the best qualities of the original varieties, becoming more resilient and unpretentious. In addition, the range of features of external forms and coloring has significantly expanded.

In the domesticated version, with proper care, fuchsia can grow up to 80 cm in height. It blooms for a long time, street, for example, pleases with flowering throughout the entire warm time. Hybrids grow rapidly, increasing in stems to 30 cm in one seasonal period.

What types can be kept at home, and which are designed for the street?

Varieties of garden fuchsias are represented by upright half-meter bushes and pyramidal ampelous plants. The flowers are usually red, pink, lilac or white, both monochromatic and in the form of multicolors.

Sapphires and Diamonds - a contrasting combination of snow-white with blue and bright blue, or with purple. These are varieties Ultramarine, Dark Secret, Capri.
Australian - a high type of fuchsia, with large flowers in a bright color-saturated range. Decorative qualities are fully manifested in the second year of life. The most famous are Walsing and Matilda.
Exotic Terry - A wide range of shades of terry flowers of small or medium size. Mostly known are Florentina and Sarah Jane.
The winter-hardy group is represented by the varieties Konstanz, Garden News and Bacon. They survive well under a layer of snow, including without special shelter.
Garden home - These are hybrids that are kept in containers in the cold, and planted in the open ground in summer. The most popular are Carolina and Anita.
Three leaf - half meter shrubs with small dark coral flowers, collected in short tassels, and large green foliage with a red tint. Hardy appearance, but more often goes like a container. Orient and Express are popular.

An overview of varieties of fuchsia for the garden and home:

Indoor varieties

They are divided into bush, ampel and ampel-bush.

Ampelic, with plastic flowing stems, are planted on balconies and in houses, planting baskets in hanging planters and hanging plants. The most famous varieties are Alice Ashton and Cascade.
Shrub with smooth shoots directed upwards are planted in containers and pots, as well as ampel-bush shoots, where the stems are fixed on special supports to form a crown.

On a note. Of the bush varieties, Armbro Campbell, Anabel, Henriett Ernst, Alisson Bell are widely popular. From ampelous - Hollis Beauty, Prince of Peace, Blue Angel, Imperial Crown.

There are room varieties and the type of flower:

Wristwort: Swanley, Yellow, Leverkusen.
Simple: Winston Churchill, Bon Accord, Brutus.
Half Terry: Snowcup, Satellite, Tennessee Walts.
Terry: Fashion, Swingtime, Midge.

Does it bloom in winter?

Flowering time depends on the plant variety, mainly fuchsias bloom at the very beginning of spring and finish flowering in late autumn, but some varieties can give color even in the winter, for example, fuchsia racemose.

Annual or perennial garden culture?

Fuchsia is a semi-shrub evergreen perennial, but gardeners, in the case of garden species, often practice complete removal of the plant at the end of the season, each time rooting new cuttings. In this case, garden fuchsia, which usually gives rise after rooting in the root of the neck in June, and blooms only in August, will delight you with the magic of flowering throughout the summer period.

Growing

You can buy a plant in a store, or you can propagate fuchsia from seeds or cuttings.

In the apartment

Cuttings are made during the trimming procedure, fragments 10-12 cm long are taken, removing the lower leaves from it, and others are halved. The cuttings are immersed in water, a mini hotbed is made, and small roots are awaited, after which they are slightly buried in a moist mixture of vermiculite and sand. Rooting occurs from a few days to a month. Moisturize the soil regularly by spraying.
After the plant is completely rooted, it is planted for permanent residence. It happens that the cuttings are planted immediately in the ground under a greenhouse, without the stage of rooting in the water.
Pollinated ripened seeds are sown in a moist sand-vermiculite mixture, create a mini-greenhouse. At normal room temperature and full lighting, shoots appear after 14 days, and after a month and a half they dive. After a two-month stage of the increase in strength and measles mass, fuchsias are seated in separate pots.

Rooting of fuchsia cuttings:

Read more about growing fuchsia here, and here we talked about how it can be rooted by cuttings.

Care Rules

Shine. Light of a scattered type will be optimal, but in shaded areas, on northern windows, fuchsia may well survive. It is believed that you need to protect these plants from direct sunlight and soften the light with curtains, but here it is better to focus on the well-being of the plant. Fuchsia can feel fine on the southern window sills, although at the same time, redness of the leaves is observed.
Temperature. The plant loves coolness, but in summer it is not always possible to create such conditions, therefore in summer fuchsia is usually cleaned inland, away from heat. To create a drop in temperature, in the heat, you can spread the ice near the pot. In winter, fuchsia is kept at a temperature of 8-10 degrees, in this regard, it should be placed near the glass or balcony.
Humidity and watering. Dry climate fuchsia is not tolerated. They like to bathe right in the shower, they love spraying. During the growing season, the ground must be kept in a moderately moist state. Fuchsia is watered after the two-centimeter top layer dries. With a lack of watering or an excess of flowers begin to fall off.Important! During periods of rest, watering is limited, moisturize minimally.
The soil. Fertile, rich in humus. It would be ideal to buy a garden soil mixture and supplement it with perlite, charcoal, chopped coconut fiber and humus from cow or horse manure. Good drainage is mandatory. Soil recipe - peat, compost, humus, coarse sand (1: 1: 1: 2). For active and rich flowering, it is recommended to introduce flour from bones or horns, take a tablespoon per liter of soil.
Transfer. Plants need rejuvenation every two to three years. Or do the update of the upper three-centimeter layer of the earth. A transplant is made in the spring, at the very beginning of the growing season.
Pots. Ceramic is more acceptable, as they breathe and do not get so hot on hot days.
Fertilizers As soon as fuchsia has started to grow, it is necessary to feed it in a regular mode. To do this, take mineral fertilizers, for example, Kemire-Lux, and alternating them with organic, for example, mullein solution, feed the plants once every ten days.
Pruning. The procedure is necessary to activate a more abundant formation of buds. Pruning is done for the first time in late autumn, removing weak, thinned and damaged stems. Fuchsia is also cut in the spring, when new leaves begin to come out. This procedure is of a deeper nature, as they remove more foliage, retaining only a couple of buds on the growths of last year. Then they regularly pinch the crown along the outer contour, forming it in a more harmonious way and cutting off the shoots.
Rest period. It begins with the first frosts and continues until early spring. Watering is reduced, spraying is excluded. Fuchsia can spend wintering in warmer temperatures, but better, nevertheless, it’s so beloved by a mountain resident cool. In warm climates, she usually drops leaves, in whole or in part, and shoots pulls up. In spring, bare stellets are cut, and watering is gradually increased. Watering is resumed no earlier than the onset of vegetation.

You can read more about caring for fuchsia at home here, and here we talked about its transplantation and cultivation.

Wintering

They dig up flowers for wintering after the first frosts occurred, even if they are in September, so that hardening occurs before winter sleep.

Before digging fuchsia, it is cut off in half.
Next, the plants are placed in containers, in a sand-soil mixture, tightly to each other. Keep in the light.
These conditions are observed: at +10 degrees and a one-time watering with an interval of 7 days, so that the plant does not prematurely enter the growth phase.
When all the leaves fall off, the fuchsia is transferred for storage to a dark room, it can be in the basement, and watering is done every 30 days.

Pay attention! In early March, plants are moved to nutrient soil, shoots are removed, and watering is increased.

More information about wintering fuchsia can be found in this article.

In the garden

Fuchsia is planted in slightly shaded corners, protected from the winds. The soil will suit fertile, slightly acidic or neutral acidity.

Landing on the site is done in late spring or early summer. The root neck is not buried by more than 20 cm. The rooting process lasts two and a half weeks and the plant, gaining strength, enters the flowering period.

Water often, but in moderation. Every 14-20 days they are fed with mineral complexes to ensure generous flowering.

There are frost-resistant hybrids that can winter in the open ground, and there are heat-loving garden fuchsias that need special conditions for the winter period.

You can read more about growing fuchsia in the garden and caring for it in this material.

Wintering in the open ground

When cold weather sets in, they cut the plant flush with the soil, sprinkle it a little with earth and cover it with twigs of spruce branches, and a piece of polyethylene or roofing material is thrown on top. In May, the 15th, they open the plant, and after a little while they open it completely.

Transfer

Fuchsia needs to be bred and transplanted to rejuvenate the bush or when the plant becomes cramped in a pot, as well as to update the spent soil mixture.

For fuchsia, transplantation is desired.when retaining an earthen lump with roots. Drainage is filled up, it is closed with a couple of centimeters of new soil and the plant is planted, sequentially filling empty places on the sides.

Then they put fuchsia in a fully lit space, shorten the stems by a third, do spraying and watering.

Learn more about fuchsia transplantation here.

Transplantation and trimming of fuchsias at the beginning of the season:

Reasons why they don't bloom

Are there any ways to make home fuchsia bloom? It is necessary to exclude the main reasons:

It was too warm wintering.
Lack of nutrition.
Excessive hydration.
The volume of the pot does not fit, too tight, or vice versa, too spacious.
Inadequate lighting during development

Examples and Superstition

Fuchsia, preparing for flowering, is hidden from an evil look, and blooming exhibit during celebrations.

On a note. The flower develops an intuitive instinct, brings the aura of the room to harmony, fights passivity and despondency, gives strength and inspiration, the plant has strong energy.

It helps to find unusual ways out of complicated and complicated situations.
Develops creative thinking.
Harmonizes the relationship between parents and children.
Fuchsia energy helps to cure diseases of the digestive tract, mammary glands and thyroid gland.

In addition to these properties, fuchsia is credited with the value of the flower of single women and widows.

You can learn more about signs of fuchsia and interesting facts here.

Disease

Powder spots indicate powdery mildew, the cause of which is usually an excess of moisture, Fundazol and Topaz are used for healing.
Yellowness and desiccation come as signs of chlorosis, usually from excess water and too cold a climate.Watering with a slightly pink manganese solution will relieve the disease.
Brown spots indicate a dangerous infection. This is most likely rust. All painful fragments are removed, sprayed with a Bordeaux solution once every ten days (three times a day).
The lethargy of leaf blades causes malnutrition and illumination.
Whiteflies, spider mites and aphids can also annoy. Actellik and Angara help.
A hot shower every seven days is a good preventive measure against ticks, and watering once every 6 months with Aktara protects against other parasites.

Fuchsia deservedly won the sympathy of gardeners and florists, because it the bright beauty is very modest and unpretentious in her requests. So little effort is needed to enjoy her aesthetic gifts for a long time.