Bush form is the simplest and most common style for fuchsias. The bush may be small or large, but it is always kept compact and uniform.
To produce a small bush, start when the plant is young and pinch out the centers of all growing tips as soon as they make two sets of leaves.
After each pinching, two side branches begin to grow. By continuing to pinch new tips, you create the many branches needed for compact growth, and you multiply the number of bud-forming tips, so flowering will be profuse.
To Yield a Higher Bush
Let several main branches grow upward and pinch out only side branches to produce a larger bush. When the plant is as high as you want, then pinch the top.
Go over the sides, too, and shape things evenly. If you make mistakes, new leaves will quickly cover them.
The best varieties of fuchsia for bush form are those with heavy, stiff stems:
- Brigadoon
- Candlelight
- Cardinal
- Checkerboard
- Dark Eyes
- Display
- Sister
- Minnesota
- South Gate
- Pink Jade
- Whitemost
As espaliers, fuchsias will quickly cover a high fence or bare wall with a pleasing leaf-flower pattern.
The usual arrangement is a single upright stem with a series of side branches—although you might make fan shapes, pitchfork patterns with three or more vertical tines, or candelabra.
The modern mode tends toward free-form natural lines rather than the stiff formality once used in espaliering.
Training to Espalier
Start fuchsia espaliers with newly rooted, fast-growing kinds, and use trailing varieties. Have them in a 6-inch pot.
Insert a small stake 12″ inches above the plant, and tie the stem to it.
Train it upward, and remove side branches as soon as it attains a height of 6″ or 8″ inches. Beyond 8″ inches, permit only the sturdy side branches that will build the desired pattern.
When the plant reaches the top of the stake, transplant it to its permanent home —a 12-inch pot or tub.
In mild climates, you can put it in the ground. Put a strong stake in the container and attach a wood trellis. Or against a wall, tie branches to wires strung across the surface or to rails or pickets of a fence.
Tie branches to grow in the direction desired, and remove any unwanted ones that appear. When the basic skeleton is formed, stop further upward-outward growth by pinching out the tip ends of branches. Then foliage will fill out the pattern.
Good varieties for espalier include ‘California,’ Brigadoon, “Gay Fandango,’ Georgana,’ and ‘Glamour,’ plus most basket types.
Tree Forms Are High Style
Fuchsias trained to tree form are in high style now. You can have trees from 3′ to 10′ feet high, but the average is 4′ to 6′ feet. Start with a strong straight-stemmed plant (best a trailing variety) and set it in a gallon can.
Stake it, and keep the main stem tied at each node as it grows, removing all side branches. When it is 3′ feet high, transplant it to a five-gallon can or tub of comparable size.
Drive a new inch-square stake near the stem, as tall as you want the full-grown tree to be.
Tie the stem to this as before.
At the top of the stake, fasten a circular wire frame 18″ inches in diameter with two horizontal cross braces or spokes. This supports and protects the crown as it develops.
Keep the stem growing straight up by tying it to the stake, and pinch off side shoots, but let leaves remain—the plant feeds and breathes through these, and without any, it dies.
You may remove stem leaves after top growth is complete. Pinch the ascending tip when the plant is near the top of the stake.
Two new shoots will soon appear. When they have two sets of leaves, pinch out their centers, letting two leaves remain on each shoot, and continue this pinching as new branches arise.
Drape this lateral growth over the wireframe as it develops. Keep on pinching, and you will soon see a bushy crown covered with foliage and bloom.
Good varieties for training fuchsia trees include:
- ‘American Beauty’
- ‘Bluebird’
- ‘Cardinal’
- ‘Cascade’
- ‘Checkerboard’
- ‘Flamboyant’
- ‘Marinka’
- ‘Muriel’
- ‘Red Spider’
- ‘TrailBlazer’
Basket Fuchsias Are Easy
For the most beautiful and graceful form in which fuchsias may be grown, let them cascade from hanging baskets.
Choose naturally trailing varieties, and arrange them in tiered planters, window boxes, or hanging from the rafters of lath houses, porches, or from sturdy trees.
Start with small plants, three or four to a container, all the same kind. First, pinch out growing tips to make stems branch, then pinch branch tips to make more branches spread evenly around the container’s rim.
Hold them in place temporarily with hairpin-like wires in the soil. Soon foliage will completely cover the sides of the basket.
Kinds of Fuchsia
The list of fuchsia kinds suited to baskets is nearly endless. It includes kinds suggested for espaliers and trees, and many others, including:
- ‘Anna’
- ‘Autumnale’
- ‘Bouffant’
- ’Cascade’
- ’Claret Cup’
- ‘Lilibet’
- ‘First Love’
- ‘Marinka’
- ‘Miss California’
- ‘Molesworth’
- ‘Swingtime’
- ‘Waltz Time’
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