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East Yorkshire, United Kingdom Gb

In August I was given 6 small hardy fuchsia plants. They are now separately in 3 plastic pots and 3 terracotta pots. The plants are about 1 ft. high and the leaves are now falling from them. How do I look after them during the winter? Do they need some water and do I cut them back at all and when? Intend to keep them potted throughout their lives. Any advice would be really helpful.




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Any potted fuchsias will need to be kept above freezing in the winter to avoid the compost freezing, which normally means bringing them in. They can be kept somewhere cool and once they have lost their leaves pretty dry too.
An unheated spare room or frost free garage is OK. As they will have no leaves they won't need much light - I once kept one on top of a spare room wardrobe before I had space to plant any outside.
Whether you cut them back or not indoors is up to you but it helps in spring when starting them into growth to spray the stems that are there with tepid water, so don't cut them to soil level until new growth starts to show.

It is possible to keep them ticking over with leaves on through the winter in a conservatory for example, when they would need a little watering now and again just to prevent complete drying out how much depends on ambient temperature.

Hardy ones usually grow quite big in the ground so remember they will need potting on every spring if you want to get the best from them.

Oh, and remove all the fallen leaves from the pots.

19 Nov, 2015

 

As Steragram says, they are vulnerable at the root to frost when kept in pots - if you can't bring them all in, is there somewhere you can 'sink' the pots, such as a spare bit of border - bury the pots and remove them in spring.

19 Nov, 2015

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