A MYSTERY FUCHSIA
Can anyone identify it?
Email me if you can bcooper1@pacific.net.au
On a holiday to Bateman's Bay on the south coast of NSW I visited Mogo.
In the nursery there, there was a large fuchsia growing like a tree, its trunk was 2 or 3 what were obviously originally vine like branches twisted together. It was obviously old and very gnarled. It was in full bloom in March 2006.
The nursery owner said her grandfather had been a fuchsia enthusiast but she didn't know anything above the magnificent plant. She said she usually took cuttings and sold the plants but didn't have small ones (just a huge one in a concrete pot) at the time. She agreed to dig up a sucker for me and sell me some cuttings. So that night at the beachside cabin we were renting I potted them up. Two cuttings survived and now the are over 5ft high.
The "tree" unfortunately the sun made it difficult for my inexpert photography
The same variety in a big pot trained as a shrub so maybe the "tree" was trained to climb the post. |
The "trunks" tied to a 5 inch thick post. Below some close-ups of the flowers.
|
Photos of my cuttings now nearly 6ft high, I am trying to grow another "tree". The leaves are much bigger than the parent plant.
|
The cuttings take quite readily and are self branching - I have had to take off over 20 side shoots from the 2 plants. The leaves on my plants are much larger than the parent and at this stage flatter. This maybe due to better watering and fertilizing (maybe too much).
I have searched through all my books and on the net and haven't been able to find anything that really matches, even taking into consideration the fact that many fuchsias grow larger here than described in British books. Some photos are very similar but the description does not tally or vice-versa.
| Just recently a friend also visited Mogo and took photos of the same fuchsia. I remembered it as all red but this much clearer photo shows a small purple corolla, maybe it was faded purple when I saw it.
As you can see the tube and the sepals are quite long and the corolla small. The flowers are quite large for singles 3 to 4 cm, the leaves 6 to 8 cm on the original, much larger on my cuttings. |
|
Visit my fuchsia garden
