It's Fuchsia Season

          Today I nipped out the growing tips on three of my (attempted) standard fuchsias. (I'm using "Fuchsias The Complete Guide" by George Bartlett as my bible for this project.) One is 21 inches, one 31 inches and the other is 35 inches. I think the last two are the bare minimum for full standards (G.B. says fulls are 30 to 42 inches) and I don't really know how the tops will grow and whether their "trunks" will still be this length when the top grows out. (The 21 inch one will be a half standard.) It's so thrilling. I have them in rather large pots (G.B. recommends 3 inch ones, and mine are 5 inches square) so I hope they will not get discouraged. I am supposed to leave the leaves on the stem "until a head is formed" so I'm not doing anything else at the moment. I'm to keep pinching out the tips of the side shoots to get a bushy top, but they're too small for that yet. I have two others which still have some room to grow up their flower stick so I'm not going to stop them yet.
      

        In other fuchsia news, I have overwintered a number of them in the cold garage (kept at 4 degrees C.) and when I checked recently some were coming into bud and leaf. I have re-potted them all (except one) and am hopeful that they will survive. I had two tiny ones I was especially fond of in baskets by the front door, and so far only one has sprouted. However I keep spritzing the other one and I hope it will survive. This photo shows them before they got hung up outside last summer. I don't know which one I like best, but if one doesn't make it I guess I shall prefer the other. They both suffered quite a bit from neglect over the summer (forgetting to water them was the problem) so I should be pleased that they want to keep growing for me.
The one I haven't re-potted is covered with small sprouts so I am keeping it going, for taking cuttings (I'm greedy, I know). I had a huge "Swingtime" fuchsia in a large pot for several years, so I re-potted it - and it turns out that it is them as I now have 5 separate plants. Not much sign of growth so far but I am hopeful. I just re-potted them this week.  They had a lot of root.

           After Easter last year the Superstore had hydrangeas in lovely printed tins for 99 cents each. We got a few, and I checked their zone - it was 6 which is just a bit better than our 5B. So I re-potted them and kept them outdoors in their pots all summer, and brought them in to the garage for the winter. When I got the fuchsias out of the way I discovered that the hydrangeas were coming out in leaf as well! The white one even has flower buds. Is it planning to bloom for Easter? It is "Alaska" and the two others are "Bottstein" a reddish - purple. One of those bloomed last summer in the pot! I feel like I should re-pot them, but they are in quite big pots, hard to manage indoors. And I think I should leave the blooming one anyway. Pretty great for 99 cents. I plan to put them outdoors eventually with lots of protection, but for now I'm just so happy with them for surviving.
           I was getting quite pessimistic about my seed-starting abilities, as there were no signs of either peppers (planted 10 Feb.) or tomatoes (planted 28 Feb.). They yesterday, the tomatoes showed up! And today the peppers have popped out.

3 kinds of tomatoes: Sweet Million, Mountain Magic, Mosaic Mix

Peppers: New Ace. 

            Planted another tomato today ( a heritage variety from my sis) and I am optimistic they will be along shortly. Now that the fuchsias are in the house I can bring in my wire shelving unit from the garage and get the seedlings under lights and moving along. Today I also started seeds of nemophila "penny black" and scarlet flax, which was lovely last year. Roll on summer.