Fuchsias on balcony
By balcony
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Fuchsias on balcony
I bought about a dozen plants last year from the Society for the Blind shop in town, unfortunately they weren’t named. :-(( They flowered very well during the summer then I dug them up, cut them back & put them in pots in the autumn. They were kept pretty dry in the mini-greenhouse in the most sheltered corner of the balcony. The majority of them survived the winter even though they were outside.
I planted them up in the centre of 9 hanging baskets in late May, they were making good progress till we went to Spain, to attend to my wife’s mother, for 3 weeks in July.
During that time our son looked after them but unfortunately when we got back home I saw they had, for the most part, dried up!
Obviously my son hadn’t given the baskets enough water! He is new to gardening never having grown anything other than a Pothos in his flat in Spain. He now has his own garden & often asks his father for help!
I cut them back very drastically, leaving no more than an inch of stem on the plants in the hope they will grow back again.
The little plants that surround the dead stems of the Fuchsias are Busy Lizzie (Impatiens) seedlings that I put in the baskets about a week ago. As the baskets have next to no flowers after the Fuchsias died I thought these would make a good show to compensate.
Unfortunately it wasn’t to be & only one has survived the drastic cut back. (In the circle)
Hanging wicker basket with Fuchsia & trailing Begonia on balcony:
Fuchsia flowering in green pot on balcony floor:
Fuchsia flowering in strawberry planter on balcony:
Fuchsia Lady Boothby on balcony:
Lady Boothby is supposed to be a “climbing” Fuchsia but with me it’s never got higher than about a metre (3ft).
And to finish this blog here is a photo of our balcony taken from outside:
9 Aug, 2016
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Comments
Your balcony is very pretty :)
I'm sorry to hear about your Fuchsias. A similar thing happened to mine when my father 'looked after' them while I was away, many years ago. I've never been away in the summer since that happened !
10 Aug, 2016
Oliveoil it is easy to forget to water hanging baskets - even on a small balcony! As they are above your head & even with 9 of them it's still easy to forget! LOL!
Thanks, Hywel, glad you think my balcony looks very pretty! The Begonias on the railings are quite spectacular but the wind tends to "burn" anything there. Just this week I've had flowers destroyed & leaves burnt by the strong winds from the Northwest which we have had. ;-((
My standard Fuchsias had the branches on one side of the heads burnt away so I turned then around & they still grew & flowered for several years till the very hard winter of 2010 killed them off.
I've taken some cutting of the Fuchsia in the strawberry planter as my brother says it the best colour combination he likes in Fuchsias. I think one or two may have rooted. I shall give him them once I'm sure & have had the chance to pot them up.
I also took a cutting of my Lady Boothby fuchsia today & I hope it will root. The last time I did that the cutting never rooted. ;-((
10 Aug, 2016
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what a shame you lost so many, ah well always fingers crossed that some survive. It happens when the weather is so hot, people do not understand the need for watering baskets and pots and tubs daily and with lots of water. I am the worst for remembering to water things in pots. I forgot my trailing Heucherellas and lost one of them, thankfully I had taken a cutting and it has survived before its parent curled up and died. I do not know what I was thinking of, forgot they were hanging up the middle of the garden and if you do not walk up there and see them the memory forgets to water and that is just what happened. Too busy doing other things as you were too, put it down to experience again lol.
9 Aug, 2016