It’s official! Mark your calendars now!
I’ll be talking at the 2025 Northwest Flower & Garden Festival held at the Convention Center in Seattle next February. It’s not too early to start planning to attend this fabulous show already.
Fuchsia-La! The Hidden Empire of Fuchsia Species for the Garden & Greenhouse
Date: Saturday February 22, 2025
Time: 11:15 AM
Room: Plant Academy
Want to know everything about fuchsias? Then you’ve come to the right place! Welcome to The Fuchsietum, a small private garden in the City of Portland, Oregon with a focus on fuchsias.
Portland? Oregon? Yes! If you've been here before and are a little confused, Fuchsias in the City has been transplanted to the City of Fuchsias. There are even more changes to the website coming as the focus shifts and the new garden.
Formerly located in New York City on 1/92nd of an acre (1/224 ha), the old city refuge was cloistered within the high-rises of Manhattan and inhabited by fuchsias, hostas, ferns, astilbes and way too many other shade-loving plants. In October 2019, the Fuchsias in the City left Manhattan to Go West.
They're now happily ensconced in a new landscape in the City of Fuchsias and making it their own. Well, Portland is generally known just as the City of Roses but the fuchsias are working on that one. There's already a beachhead of hardy fuchsias at the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park and another hardy display maintained by the Oregon Fuchsia Society at Western Seminary here in Portland. (If you happen to be in the neighborhood, check it out.)
Pronuciation? Easy enough. Few-she-EE-tum. Like arboretum except with fuchsias. Though I often just slide the middle vowels together and lengthen them into a single longer one: Few-SHEEE-tum. Unless I'm in a classical mood then I say Fooks-see-EE-tum (or Fooks-SEEE-tum).
This new garden has been a work in progress that I've been calling the Evil Master Plan & Garden Makeover. It's occupying a generous space of 1/15th of an acre with sunny, eastern, southern and western exposures. The USDA Climate Zone is 9a. But the whole region has little in common with the heat and humidity of similar USDA zones in the Eastern and Southern US, especially when it comes to the ponderous summer dew points there. Zone 6 on the more locally accurate Sunset climate scale is a somewhat better window on Portland's climate, even if it doesn't fully account for the many variables and microclimates within the area. ➤ Sunset Zones.
According to the broad brush of the Köppen Climate Classification, Portland is Cfb. Which means we're supposed to experience a temperate oceanic type of climate with warm, dry summers and mildly cold, wet winters. A sort of Mediterranean experience, if you wish. The dry summers in Portland always surprise people, who tend to think of Seattle's weather and the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest. It's not. Whatever, the classification, Portland is practically a fuchsia paradise. Correction, it is a fuchsia paradise. Fuchsias love this climate. Many are entirely winter hardy here. ➤ Enter the garden.
Wander around the website. It's not just the fuchsias growing in the garden. There's also lots of other information on fuchsias—both from around the corner and around the world. Looking to find ➤ fuchsias for sale? Learn about their ➤ care & culture? Join ➤ a fuchsia society or group? And much, much more? You’ve come to the right place. The Fuchsietum has all the right stuff you need to know. ➤ Site guide.
A garden, of course, is a living, changing thing so don't neglect to drop by every now and then as the seasons progress to see how it's coming along. You can follow ➤ The Fuchsia+Blog for posts on the new fuchsia garden, as well as various other thoughts of gardening and horticulture, in the city or otherwise. With travels, too. Or, come, join in the conversations on the Bluesky Social ➤ @Fuchsiarius or on other social media below. (Note: I no longer post on the Former Twitter as its management has gotten too repellent .)
I'm available for talks and lectures. If you'd like a talk or presentation for your garden show, plant society, or garden club, let me know. Most travel is local, of course. But I am open to offers from anywhere… Comments? Questions? I'd love to hear from you. ➤ More Info.
Portland? Oregon? Yes! If you've been here before and are a little confused, Fuchsias in the City has been transplanted to the City of Fuchsias. There are even more changes to the website coming as the focus shifts and the new garden.
Formerly located in New York City on 1/92nd of an acre (1/224 ha), the old city refuge was cloistered within the high-rises of Manhattan and inhabited by fuchsias, hostas, ferns, astilbes and way too many other shade-loving plants. In October 2019, the Fuchsias in the City left Manhattan to Go West.
They're now happily ensconced in a new landscape in the City of Fuchsias and making it their own. Well, Portland is generally known just as the City of Roses but the fuchsias are working on that one. There's already a beachhead of hardy fuchsias at the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park and another hardy display maintained by the Oregon Fuchsia Society at Western Seminary here in Portland. (If you happen to be in the neighborhood, check it out.)
Fuchsias of the Fall.
Pronuciation? Easy enough. Few-she-EE-tum. Like arboretum except with fuchsias. Though I often just slide the middle vowels together and lengthen them into a single longer one: Few-SHEEE-tum. Unless I'm in a classical mood then I say Fooks-see-EE-tum (or Fooks-SEEE-tum).
This new garden has been a work in progress that I've been calling the Evil Master Plan & Garden Makeover. It's occupying a generous space of 1/15th of an acre with sunny, eastern, southern and western exposures. The USDA Climate Zone is 9a. But the whole region has little in common with the heat and humidity of similar USDA zones in the Eastern and Southern US, especially when it comes to the ponderous summer dew points there. Zone 6 on the more locally accurate Sunset climate scale is a somewhat better window on Portland's climate, even if it doesn't fully account for the many variables and microclimates within the area. ➤ Sunset Zones.
According to the broad brush of the Köppen Climate Classification, Portland is Cfb. Which means we're supposed to experience a temperate oceanic type of climate with warm, dry summers and mildly cold, wet winters. A sort of Mediterranean experience, if you wish. The dry summers in Portland always surprise people, who tend to think of Seattle's weather and the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest. It's not. Whatever, the classification, Portland is practically a fuchsia paradise. Correction, it is a fuchsia paradise. Fuchsias love this climate. Many are entirely winter hardy here. ➤ Enter the garden.
Wander around the website. It's not just the fuchsias growing in the garden. There's also lots of other information on fuchsias—both from around the corner and around the world. Looking to find ➤ fuchsias for sale? Learn about their ➤ care & culture? Join ➤ a fuchsia society or group? And much, much more? You’ve come to the right place. The Fuchsietum has all the right stuff you need to know. ➤ Site guide.
A garden, of course, is a living, changing thing so don't neglect to drop by every now and then as the seasons progress to see how it's coming along. You can follow ➤ The Fuchsia+Blog for posts on the new fuchsia garden, as well as various other thoughts of gardening and horticulture, in the city or otherwise. With travels, too. Or, come, join in the conversations on the Bluesky Social ➤ @Fuchsiarius or on other social media below. (Note: I no longer post on the Former Twitter as its management has gotten too repellent .)
I'm available for talks and lectures. If you'd like a talk or presentation for your garden show, plant society, or garden club, let me know. Most travel is local, of course. But I am open to offers from anywhere… Comments? Questions? I'd love to hear from you. ➤ More Info.
R. Theo Margelony
The Fuchsietum | A Garden in Portland
Formerly Fuchsias in the City
Now in the City of Fuchsias
President
Oregon Fuchsia Society (OFS)
Member
American Fuchsia Society (AFS)
American Horticultural Society (AHS)
British Fuchsia Society (BFS)
Hardy Plant Society of Oregon (HPSO)
Int'l Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS)
Linnaean Society of London (ALS)
Native Plant Society of Oregon (NPSO)
Northwest Fuchsia Society (NWFS)
Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)
PNW — Introducing Fuchsia 'Night Fire'
On the Fuchsia Trail. Humboldt County, California. Ferndale on the Eel River. In 1852, 13-year-old Zipporah Patrick Russ went West with her family in two covered wagons. The Patrick Family started in….
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