Fuchsia - how to deal with them at the very end of the season

Hardy Fuchsia, don't we love them?

They flower their socks off, all season long, and come up smiling again, year after year.

This has been a particularly good year for them, and they were looking fantastic right up until we had that batch of extremely cold weather last week, which really finished them all off.

Here's a typical example - a fortnight ago, it was glorious, but when I arrived for work earlier this week, the foliage was blackened and mushy, and the flowers had all gone a horrible dull pink.

Time to cut it back!

Fuchsia is one of those woody perennial sub-shrubs which really benefits from being cut back hard every year: it rejuvenates them, they grow back just as big, the following year, and it keeps them bushy and lush.

So the first part of the job is very easy, just chop off every single woody stem, as low down as you reasonably can.

At this point, you are likely to get your knuckles stabbed by the remains of the stems which were cut down the previous year: and this is why I always advise Trainees to get in the habit of cutting as low down as "reasonably" possible, because if you leave them a foot high, then the following year, you will be unable to cut any lower, so you'll leave them 14" high, and the year after than, you'll be unable to cut any lower, so you leave them 16" high... you get the picture.

I also advise Trainees to cut straight across, rather than at a pointy angle - otherwise those last-year stems will really stab your knuckles! 

Here we are, then - right - the whole thing has been reduced down to just a few inches.

Job done?

No, not quite.

It's always good practice to rake out all those fallen leaves, along with any other debris you can remove.

This allows air in around the base of the plant, and removes what can turn into a soggy mass of organic matter, which is a haven for bugs and disease, and often leads to rot, at the base.

Having done that, you will now be able to get in amongst the stems, and you will be able to remove a lot of the very old stems, the ones which were cut in previous years. In fact, you will often find that old stems will just snap off, right at the base.

So snap off those you can, snip off those you can't, rake out the mess, and you will be left with something more like this:

You can see right down to soil level, between the clumps of stems: nice!

My work here is done.

Now to go all the way round the garden, repeating this process on the dozen or more large Fuchsias!

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