Sunday, July 26, 2026
What’s flowering at the Fuchsietum? Fuchsia ‘Bernisser Hardy’ is a cross between F. magellanica 'Molinae' x F. regia from Bas Weeda of….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, November 30, 2025
What’s in flower at the Fuchsietum? Look at that! Fuchsia boliviana ‘Alba’ finally made it. Well, almost anyway….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, February 13, 2026
It’s taken a year! My new greenhouse finally went up in September, 2026. There was no staging yet that first winter, though. The fuchsia species did shelter inside but they were arrayed on the floor on…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, December 01, 2025
What’s in flower at the Fuchsietum? Camellia sasanqua ‘October Magic Ruby’. Not really what I would call ruby red on my plant but the color is still a bit richer and more interesting to the naked eye than….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, March 20, 2026
What’s flowering at the Fuchsietum? Fuchsia ‘DebRon’s Premier Nouveau’. It’s a large plant with large flowers and a bit of a rangey habit. I like it precisely for that ranginess….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
What’s flowering at the Fuchsietum? Fuchsia ‘Göttingen’, another character in the book, From the Mixed-Up Fuchsia Files of Gartenmeister Carl Bonstedt….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, October 30, 2025
What's in flower at the Fuchsietum? Fuchsia 'Martha Werle' was from the hybridizing hand of Henry Werle and introduced in 1940. It was named for his wife, Martha. The Werles were owners of the well-known….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
Fuchsia ‘Firecracker’ has stopped cracking most of its fire in the Pacific Northwest. An interestingly variegated sport of ‘Thalia’, the cultivar was originally dubbed ‘John Ridding’ after its finder. It was introduced commercially….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, November 15, 2025
What’s in flower at the Fuchsietum? Fuchsia ‘Dying Embers’ paired with some black mondo grass, Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'. I find it’s hard to….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Happy 509th birthday to Conrad Gessner, born today in Zürich on 16 March 5016. Gessner was a noted physician, naturalist, bibliographer, philologist, Among many other things. He's sometimes even called the Swiss…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, March 14, 2025
What’s flowering at The Fuchsietum? Fuchsia ‘First Success’ is an alluring cross between F. paniculata x F. splendens bred in the Netherlands in 1985….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, February 01, 2025
When in Boston, a revisit to the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum is in order. The wealthy Gardener was a voracious collector of art, and many other what-nots, with decidedly eccentric ideas about….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, January 27, 2025
Unlike that unconscionable arctic assault we endured about this time last year, winter consistently moving itself into the upper twenties ain’t all that bad. Nor the 25 F (almost -4 C) that descended on the garden last night….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, February 15, 2025
I was just sorting through another box of old files and things. I confess that I have way too many of them still in hiding from my move from Manahattan but, occasionally, I'll get inspired and tackle another. It's very cold out there this week so…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, January 17, 2025
Happy 524th Birthday to Leonhart Fuchs,
Born on 17 January 1501.
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Monday, January 06, 2025
🎼 On the First Day of Christmas
🎶 My True Love sent to me
🎶 A Partridge in a Pear Tree and….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
My last outing of the year on the last day of the year was to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden here in Portland. You might not be aware but the American Rhododendron Society was born in Portland and Crystal Springs….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Scene on the Fuchsia Trail. A quick stop to drop off some new DebRon’s Fuchsias for testing of their potential resistance against the fuchsia gall mite with Mark Danner and the Crescent City Branch….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Finally a first frost early this morning on the First of December. 31.7 F (-0.1666 C) was just enough to garnish exposed parts of the garden with tiny crystals of ice. But even ‘Gartenmeister Bonstedt’ has laughed….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
It’s official! Mark your calendars now!
I’ll be talking at the 2025 Northwest Flower & Garden Festival at the Convention Center in Seattle next February. It’s not too early to start planning to attend this fabulous show already….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, November 15, 2024
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….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, October 31, 2024
What’s flowering at The Fuchsietum? Or was, rather. The fallen fuchsia often has an interesting afterlife….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, June 01, 2024
What’s (never) flowering at The Fuchsietum? Wisteria sinensis 'Kofuji' (‘Mekura Fuji'). This is a dwarf Chinese wisteria that remains a miniature. Truly miniature. Even the leaves are miniature and have a graceful fern-like effect….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Very common in nurseries in the Pacific Northwest is this partial reversion of Fuchsia ‘Firecracker’ back to its parent ‘Thalia’. It’s been making the rounds….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, April 13, 2024
When the fuchsias fly in! San Juan Capistrano has its swallows that herald the arrival of spring. Around here it’s Fuchsia Saturday at Fred Meyewr….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, April 02, 2024
An antique shoebox label with fuchsias. “Presented with fine shoes. H. O’Hara. 72 Canal St. Grand Rapids Mich.” is printed in the lower left corner and “American Fuchsias” in the right. The fuchsias depicted are….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, March 24, 2024
In the spring a gardener's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of fuchsias. "Help! I love fuchsias. They're my favorite flower. Where can I get seeds or starts?" went a lament just this past week on social media….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, March 11, 2024
The big question this morning: Cat or coyote? I caught another rat out back. I thought something was up when I noticed the motion-activated light behind the house went on at 5:30 am….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Just in time for Mother's Day, I was interviewed about hardy Fuchsias by Lorene Edwards Forkner for the Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Hey Fuchsia Fans! A reminder that I'll be speaking at the upcoming 2024 Northwest Flower & Garden Festival in Seattle….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, May 26, 2023
Scene in London. Lunch today at the Prospect of Whitby on the Thames in Wapping….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, February 05, 2024
Fuchsiana. Buy your meats at Kennedy's Market….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
With the frosts, it’s time….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, January 19, 2024
It’s been a heck of a week!➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, January 06, 2024
That’s it! Some fold up the Yuletide festivities early but it ain’t over until the Three Kings sing. So thanks for singing along to the The Twelve Fuchsias of Christmas 2023. Hope you had a joyful holiday season and may your gardens flourish in 2024!➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, December 03, 2023
Fuchsia lore and fuchsiana is generally work on paper for me. Prints. Drawing. Photographs. Sometimes I get something new that turns out to be a miss….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, September 01, 2024
Saint Fiacre is a seventh-century Irish hermit and holy man who moved to Breuil, France (now called Saint-Fiacre) to escape the bothersome crowds increasingly drawn to him….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, August 01, 2023
Ever try to respond to a comment on social media and you just can’t find it can’t find it can’t find only to have it eventually dawn on you that it was posted on the competition and….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, July 08, 2023
Happy Birthday to Domenico Vandelli who was born July 8, 1735 in Padua. Vandelli was a noted Italian naturalist and botanist, originally from Padua, who worked primarily in Portugal. On the recommendation of Linnaeus, he was brought to Lisbon in 1764 by the great Portuguese reformer….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Scene in London. The Garden Museum. The Garden Museum is the first museum of its kind dedicated solely to the history of gardening. The Museum is housed in the Church of St Mary-at-Lambeth ….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, July 10, 2023
What’s flowering at The Fuchsietum? Fuchsia 'Campo Thilco'. This hybrid is resistant to the ravages of the Brazilian fuchsia gall mite, Auculops fuchsiae, as well as fuchsia rust (Pucciniastrum epilobii)….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, January 27, 2023
Venezualian-American botanist, Julian Alfred Steyermark was born today on Jan. 27, 1909. His long career included the Field Museum of Chicago, the Jardín Botánico de Caracas of the Universidad Central of Venezuela and….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, January 06, 2023
That’s it for the season. Some fold up the festivities early but it ain’t really over until the Three Kings sing. So thanks for singing along to The Twelve Fuchsias of Christmas again this year, Hope you had a joyful Christmas and a Happy New Year. May your gardens flourish in 2023!➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, January 08, 2023
Happy 200th Birthday to Alfred Russell Wallace! One of the most brilliant scientists of the nineteenth century, Wallace (Jan. 8, 1823 - Nov. 7 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist, as well as a social activist and proponent of social and economic reform. Wallace quite independently….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, December 31, 2022
À la recherche du temps perdu. A vintage postcard from Annabelle’s Fuchsia Garden in Fort Bragg, Calif. run by Annabelle Stubbs and her husband, Bud….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Pantone’s 2023 Color of the year is something called “Viva Magenta”. I have to laugh at the hyperbolic drivel in the press. “Grounded in nature”? Hardly. Magenta was a trade name applied to rosaniline hydrochloride. a synthetic aniline dye brewed in the labs of….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
The portrait-carte, sometimes portrait carte-de-visite and usually known inaccurately in English as just a carte-de-visite, was a type of photographic visiting card patented by the Parisian photographer, Eugène Disdéri (1819-1889), in 1853. Based on the indispensable visiting cards of the….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, November 11, 2022
Fuchsia juntasensis is restricted to cloud forest on the northeast slopes of the Andes in Bolivia's Cochabamba Department, where it occurs at elevations between about 1,900 to 2,800 meters. Flowering is primarily in the dry season from June-Octoiber. It belongs….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, May 21, 2022
If you've been following along on social media for the last year, you're probably aware that I've been working on a new design for the garden. When we moved into This Old House on December 1, 2019, the garden left a bit to be desired….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, April 01, 2022
Wow! I can’t believe it! A fuchsia with a bright, clear yellow in the flowers has eluded hybridizers and here one of my fuchsias has simply taken up the challenge all on its own. It's sported the Holy Grail of Fuchsias. I think I'll call it Fuchsia 'Aprilscherz'....
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Sunday, March 06, 2022
Success! Saturday was cleanup day at the Oregon Fuchsia Society's Hardy Fuchsia Display Beds at Western Seminary here in Portland. And the sun was shining after several days of rain, too! The OFS Ground Force sprang into action…. ➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, July 01, 2024
Nils Hansson Lilja, the colorful and decidedly eccentric Swedish intellectual, writer, poet, watchmaker, newspaper publisher, gardener, horticulturalist, and botanist, was born on October 17, 1808 at Blinkarp, Röstånga, in the province of Scania. His early education was at Malmö where….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, January 06, 2022
🎼 On the first day of Christmas
🎶 My true love sent to me
🎶 A partridge in a pear tree
🎶 And Fuchsia….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, January 01, 2022
Happy New Year! May 2022 bring the best of Luck!➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
07:59 PST (15:59 UTC). The winter solstice. It's here. Some mistletoe, Viscum album, from De Historia Stirpium. This sumptuously illustrated herbal was published in 1542 by none other than our Leonhart Fuchs, namesake of the Fuchsia. Now on to brighter, longer days!➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Wishing everyone everywhere all the peace, love, joy and happiness of this festive season and may the New Year bless you all with health, wealth, and even more happiness as well….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Fuchsia is often misspelled in English due to the odd pronunciation it’s been given. In fact, I’ve collected almost twenty variants. Spelling bee contestants especially, beware! I have the theory that the English pronunciation….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, November 27, 2023
German naturalist Georg Forster was born today in 1754. Along with his father, Johann Reinhold Forster, the young Forster accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of discovery in the Pacific. At Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, October 28, 2021
When Carol Gubler of Little Brook Fuchsias in the UK asked “What’s your favorite fuchsia?” on Zoom today, I had to answer that it’s usually “Love the one you’re with” with me and fuchsias. I’d be hard pressed to name just one and not all. Then it dawned on me….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
British botanist William Botting Hemsley was born on this day, December 29, 1843, in the village of East Hoathley with Halland, East Sussex. Hemsley spent most of his professional career at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Wishing everyone everywhere all the peace, love, joy and happiness of this festive season and may the New Year bless you with health, wealth, and even more happiness as well….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Fuchsia ‘Cardinal’ is another classic American cultivar released by Evans & Reeves Nurseries of Los Angeles in 1938. It has long internodes and likes to spread wide so give it room. It's also winter hardy in the usual places that fuchsias are hardy….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, November 15, 2020
I haven't been to the Leach Botanical Garden in Portland for a while since almost half of the grounds have been under renovation for the last couple of years. With the end in sight for Fall 2020, I decided to check out the progress last Sunday. I'm happy to report….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Boo! It's a Happy Halloween 2020 from the porch at Fuchsias in the City as we wait patiently for the blue Blood Moon to rise tonight. Whahaha….
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Thursday, November 26, 2020
What’s blooming on the windowsill at Fuchsias in the City? Schlumbergera truncata. Schlumbergera truncata is commonly called a Thanksgiving cactus in the US since it starts to bloom just before that quintessential American holiday in November….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, September 04, 2020
Have you ever been to PowellsWood Garden? It's a three-acre gem of a botanical garden hidden in a quiet neighborhood in Federal Way, Wash. Being in the Pacific Northwest there are, of course, lots of fuchsias planted about display beds in the beautiful garden rooms. I was on trail of just those fuchsias….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Even before the first fuchsias came to the attention of European botanists and explorers, Fuchsia boliviana was well known to the native peoples of the Andes. The Incas of Peru and Bolivia cultivated it for its edible berries from at least the beginning of their empire in the Twelfth Century….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, November 11, 2019
The fuchsias were brushed by frost a few days ago. Ordinarily this might be the end but I was struck by the faded beauty of the blossoms, muted by the cold with shades of their former selves. Some have taken on almost gem-like translucent tones of amethyst….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
I’ve been saving these three little works of art and craft for the new garden. They’ve come out now. For some reason, though, I’m now feeling the urge to hang them at the fireplace like trophies in a medieval castle….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, October 02, 2019
October 2nd. 6:00 am. The dawn was finally here. I had hardly slept. Three months of packing up the apartment in New York, dealing with movers, closing down my beloved little city garden a couple of decades in the making, and generally wrapping up….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, January 06, 2020
The Twelve Fuchsias of Christmas
🎼 On the first day of Christmas
🎶 My true love sent to me….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, January 01, 2020
Fuchsia fireworks from Fuchsia arborescens to usher in 2020. Having left NYC behind, it's a new garden and new start for me at the new Fuchsias in the City here in PDX. I've got a bunch of planning to do and I'm looking forward to what the next year will bring. There's already a bunch of new starts waiting….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, August 30, 2019
Over the course of the year, I do four different seasonal arrangements in the window, as well as the four large planters in the garden. Spring, summer, fall and winter. It's the last of its kind since I'll be heading for Portland in October. I'm really pleased….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, August 01, 2019
This is the last summer of the Fuchsias in the City. This City, anyway. Yes, we're leaving Manhattan! And not just to another outer borough. Or Long Island, or up the Hudson, or even across the river to the former Garden State, New Jersey. This move's serious and bi-coastal….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, March 02, 2019
It was full-on Flower Power at the 2019 Philadelphia Flower Show this year. Step into the Entrance Garden this year and the design immediately enfolds as the Power of Flowers pulls you further and further into its floral heart…. ➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, January 24, 2019
A brief visit to Cleveland. You've long wanted to take in its botanical garden. The perfect opportunity. But it's not summer. It's the middle of January. And a blizzard has just swept through two days before dropping almost two feet of snow….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, January 20, 2019
As winter storm Harper spread snow, ice and rain throughout the Northeast, the orchids were standing tough. Well, inside the Rutgers University's Douglass Student Center in New Brunswick, NJ anyway. It's the North Jersey Orchid Society's annual show and sale this weekend….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, December 24, 2018
A Happy Christmas and an even Happier New Year!
Wishing everyone, everywhere, all the peace, love, and joy of this festive season….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Well…. What can you say? What was supposed to be simple rain is now a full blown snow storm! This is, of course, quite a bit unseasonably early for New York. It's still Fall. The leaves are only just starting to turn. It's also the outer, early edge of a first frost. Who's ready for this….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, November 01, 2018
A time for remembering. The Fuchsias in City have gone a bit Día de Meurtos for All Saints….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, October 15, 2018
We're in the throws of an annual migration. Birds and butterflies, and assorted condo dwellers with second homes in Florida, hurry south to escape the coming cold. But squashes of all sorts are leaving their summer homes in the fields and farms of the region and migrating into the City….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Édouard André (1840-1911) was a noted French horticulturalist and one of the most prominent and celebrated European landscape designers of the second half of the 19th Century. Born in Bourges into a modest family of nurserymen, he received his early training and invaluable gardening experience….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, April 20, 2018
Many visitors to New York City know Central Park. It’s big. It’s beautiful. It’s hard to miss. Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park, on the other hand, might well be on another planet for its lack of recognition. Yes, even to many New Yorkers. Located along the Hudson River almost at the top of the island….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, December 31, 2017
It’s a world full of Happy New Year. Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! Laimingų Naujųjų metų! Manigong Bagong Taon! Gëzuar Vitin e Ri! سنة سعيدة! Yeni iliniz! Heri ya mwaka mpya! Buon anno! Bonne Année! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house. not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that Fuchsia ‘Santa Claus’ soon would be there…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, November 01, 2017
November. It’s the last gasp of the growing season in the garden. The potted fuchsias are still alive and even blooming in the waning sun. Jack Frost’s chilly breath is falling down your neck, though. It’s coming, Winter’s coming. Forecasts of cruel freezes are coming in from the weatherman. Reality. Denial won’t keep it way. What to do…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, November 05, 2017
What’s autumn without the chrysanthemum? Little it seems these days. But beyond the generic and ubiquitous mum balls that appear on every corner and outside every front door is the superb artistry and aching perfection of trained chrysanthemums, the Japanese kiku...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, October 02, 2017
I started #FuchsiasFacts for a bit of fuchsia fun on Twitter. It was a little hard to reduce the text down to Twitter’s old 144-character limit without leaving some, if not most, of the fuchsia fun behind. Twitter’s new standard of 280 characters is not a lot better. Something had to be done….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, March 19, 2017
I overheard some people ask, as they were approaching the Flower Show this year, “How long does it take?” “Well,” came the answer, “You can probably do it all in in three or four hours. But that’s not counting the marketplace.” That estimate’s possibly true but…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, March 17, 2017
Rested? Good. Welcome back. There’s More! More! More! So let’s continue traipsing through the tulip fields at Holland: Flowering the World…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
The portal into the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s annual indoor extravaganza of Spring is always a grand theatrical affair that sets the stage for the delights of the show. This year Holland’s Flowering the World and…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, March 13, 2017
The Philadelphia Flower Show, that rite of spring, always seems to come at the right time to lift my spirits. It doesn’t matter. Long winter, short winter, cold one or mild one, this annual floral production of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Wherever you are in the Universe, a very Happy New Year from Fuchsias in the City!➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Fuchsia berries are very edible. For some reason this fact often surprises people. Granted some are better tasting than others. Some much better. This fact is again not surprising as most fuchsias were bred for their flowers than than…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, November 21, 2016
It’s late fall at Fuchsias in the City and there’s gold in the garden. Sometimes I pine for brilliant flushes of scarlet and orange. Or maybe some deep shimmering hints of burgundy or copper suffusing the leaves. But it’s a small urban garden and I much of what I see…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, July 31, 2016
These days, it seems, a botanical garden isn’t a botanical garden unless it has its own flowering corpse, Amorphophallus titanium. Or one of any notoriety, at least. When Amorphophallus titanum, the so-called corpse flower…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, April 01, 2017
Get out those label makers. Change is coming! But are you sitting down for this one? In a stunning reorganization within the Onagraceae, or Evening Primrose Family, it was announced a year ago this morning that the whole of the genus Fuchsia has been folded into a related spinster genus…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Fireworks! The Chinese New Year certainly comes in with some big bangs and more than a few snap, crackle and pops. But it’s the Chinese Lantern Festival marks the last day of traditional Chinese New Year celebrations. Its bright lanterns symbolize the letting go of past selves…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, February 12, 2016
Greetings. It’s coming straight for us on Valentine’s Day. Surprise! No chocolates, though. No flowers. No Cupid’s arrow of love comes with this greeting. Nope. None indeed. Rather, an icy dagger is plunging straight down from the Arctic into the heart. An extreme Polar Vortex is expected to arrive…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
What do the great earthquake of San Francisco and fuchsias have in common? Why Alice Eastwood, of course. In case you somehow don’t already know her, you should! Eastwood was the pioneering botanist who spent the whole of her long career at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Despite the sentiments of that classic Let it Snow, the weather outside hasn’t exactly been frightful. It’s been so un-frightful, in fact, that the potted fuchsias are still out there enjoying the extended cool but frost-free fall. All thanks to this year’s El Niño’s efforts at keeping the Evil Polar Vortex…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Happy Thanksgiving from the Fuchsias in the City! Where one dazed balloon awaits its fate in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. As can only be Scene in the City, of course…
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Tuesday, August 29, 2017
There are quite a number of public gardens and other worthwhile parks—big, small, and tiny even—in the greater New York area. Of course, not all of these gems are dedicated just to the fuchsia… but they're still thoroughly interesting for the visit…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, November 14, 2015
A little more clean-up today. It started out quite a bit raw and chilly, what with the rain we’ve had, but then the skies blossomed into a brilliant periwinkle blue. The potted fuchsias are still outside. Lot’s of blooms opening still. So far there hasn’t been a frost…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, November 07, 2015
Run, don’t walk, to Central Park. Right now. No, I’m not talking about jogging, about getting yourself up and out. Though you might well do with another goal if you decide that jogging’s the best way to go. I’m really talking about seeing the annual fall chrysanthemum display. …➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, November 01, 2015
What is fall? Every season I seem to hold a debate. Mostly with myself, I guess, but what is fall really? Is it the meteorologists’ tidy definition? September, October, November. Neatly ordered pigeon holes from the monthly calendar, whether the weather’s ready or…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, August 23, 2015
You’ve heard it about nasturtiums. Maybe even gotten used to finding marigolds in your salad. But fuchsias? No way! Rest assured. All parts of the fuchsia are completely edible, from the berries to the flowers. Even the leaves, for that matter, if you’re into that…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, October 06, 2018
Ex aequatoria aliquid novum and this time it's a new hummingbird. A little stunner newly named Oreotrochilus cyanolaemus, or the blue-throated hillstar, was only just spotted in 2017 in that hotbed of biodiversity and speciation, Ecuador….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, July 26, 2015
OK. The Great Garden Chore of 2015 has been accomplished. I really don’t know why it took so long. It was’t actually even that hard. But it’s one of those things that you look at, sigh, and think, “I really need to do this”. Before you let yourself be distracted…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, July 31, 2015
Scene in the City has been a recurring series of random pictures and comments tweeted from the streets of New York. It’s been going on for a couple of years now. I’m always walking around. I’m alway taking pictures. And I’m always seeing things. Odd things…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, July 20, 2023
The future Father of Genetics was born into a poor, but stolid old family of Moravian German famers on July 20, 1822. At Heizendorf bei Odrau in Moravian Silesia. At the time the little farming village was part of the vast and unwieldy Austro-Hungarian Empire but….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Couldn’t make the Spring Flower Show? Not to worry. After a brief intermission, I’m continuing my tour of this year’s theme, Celebrate the Movies!, with more of the major landscapers and designers that provide so much of the color and excitement. There’s actually an enormous amount of...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
The grand Entrance Garden is spectacular enough but it’s actually the Flower Show’s exceptional cast of exhibitors that makes the annual production such an amazing event. Each year, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society brings together many talented landscapers and designers...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, March 13, 2015
What a difference a week of vaguely normal weather can make. Temperatures above freezing all last week, a little rain here and there, and the white tide recedes. Good riddance, you miserable Winter of 2015. Hello Spring!➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, March 15, 2015
This winter has been hard. Did I say really hard? Yup. Really hard. And reallly cold to boot. Hard and cold. The jet stream wasn’t just shuttling in its normal seasonal delights from Central Canada. That pattern usually looses most of its umph after…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, February 14, 2015
I know. I know. Fuchsia cordifolia Benth. is really a synonym of Fuchsia splendens Zucc. A couple of botanists got their descriptions crossed and it’s always, “First come, first served”. But it’s the Feast of Saint Valentine today and the old heartleaf fuchsia...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Everybody knows Darwin. The man surely needs no introduction. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was, of course, the great British naturalist, geologist and biologist best known for his seminal and explosive work, On the Origin of Species in 1859...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, January 11, 2015
The really cold part of the winter usually has the good sense to wait until sometime in January before annoying us. Well, right on the heels of the Three Kings, it’s here. Some assorted scenic snowfalls and then The Plunge blew in. Thanks guys. The snow was a nice present but...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Fuchsia ‘Venus Victrix’ has small white-tubed flowers with white sepals tipped in an apple green. Almost tiny flowers compared to most other fuchsias. Not bad looking but ‘Venus Victrix’ is also a very finicky plant. Hard, yes. Yet the Fuchsia ‘Venus Victrix’, true to its name, is a classic….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Since well before the holiday last week, the weather’s still been pretty mild here. That’s not really all that unusual. In spite of the plunge in November, the really cold snaps usually have the good sense to wait until the New Year’s...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Like a small explosion of fireworks, a panicle of Fuchsia arborescens flowers bursts brightly from the tip of a branch. Wishing everyone a great start to the coming seasons this New Year’s Day, as well as another fabulous 365 days filled with the wonders and promises of nature...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, December 25, 2014
A very Merry Christmas to everyone from Fuchsias in the City. Wishing you all the peace, joy and happiness of this festive season!
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Friday, December 12, 2014
I walk to work. I mean, I could take a bus if I really wanted to. But I don’t. There’s no point to cramming myself into one at rush hour when I can just walk the same route almost as quickly as a city bus can inch along it...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, August 01, 2014
Perhaps the most significant heraldic fuchsia grows on the Isle of Man. In the tradition of the great plant badges of the British Isles, such the rose of England or the thistle of Scotland, the fuchsia of hedges...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, November 21, 2014
Be
auty isn’t always only skin deep. At least it isn’t at my local farmers market here in Yorkville. Specifically, I’m talking about ‘Pink-a-Boo’. That’s got to be my newest favorite apple. Last time I was extolling all the wonderful apples that appear...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, November 15, 2014
I love apples. OK, there, I’ve admitted it. Despite their reputation, biting into one doesn’t always mean expulsion from Paradise or the launch of tediously long wars and oddeseys. They’re good. Quite likely my favorite fruit...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, November 09, 2014
The end of daylight time is only a week past but it seems like much of the world disappeared when the switch was flipped off. Early evening a couple of days ago and Central Park was already mostly abandoned...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, September 01, 2014
For the only other heraldic fuchsia that I know of, you have to go to an island much further afloat than Man. Very much further. Afloat in the South Pacific, in fact. But there, as in Flowers and Heraldry...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, June 15, 2014
I’ve tried and tried to find many. Any at all, even. Despite their great popularity in the greenhouse and the garden from their first introduction into cultivation in England in the 1790s, fuchsias are curiously virtually nonexistent on heraldic shields...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, March 14, 2014
It’s been a long, tiresome winter this year. I’m sure you’ve had enough of it as well. Monday afternoon was finally blue and heavenly. 64 degrees in Central Park. I was really feeling spring in the air...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, March 17, 2014
Since the depths of January, there hasn’t been much new going on outside. It's been basically the same pattern. Freeze. Snow. Freeze. Snow. Freeze. The over-wintering pots of fuchsias are… well… still impatiently over-wintering and...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, March 06, 2014
Since the final day of the Philly Flower Show is tomorrow, it’s high time to announce the winner of this year’s Fuchsia Ribbon. That way you still get to see the winning display, If you hurry. This year, the coveted award goes to...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
I always look forward to the plant competitions. A lot. It’s one of my favorite areas of the show and I keep winding back through when I want some down time from the other displays. It’s probably an odd thing for me to say...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, March 03, 2014
This year’s theme is ARTiculture. Look up the word in the dictionary, you won't find it. Google it, though, and you'll be lead straight to the Philadelphia Flower Show. It’s a unique melding of the world of plants with the world of art...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
It’s another day so time to continue my stroll though a few more of the many, many creative gardens at ARTiculture. At ten acres of displays there’s a lot of ground to cover. Past the biggest, glitziest entries the smaller efforts...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Once I made it past the huge Calder tribute at the entrance, it was finally down the rabbit hole and into the show. It wasn’t an easy dive because I just wanted to keep doing figure eights and odd twirls...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, March 01, 2014
The Philadelphia Flower Show is the oldest of spring flower exhibitions in the United States, incredibly held annually since 1829. But that’s Phildelphia’s charm. History immediate and accessible...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, February 27, 2014
It seems like this winter just won’t end. Snow, snow, freezing polar vortices, and then more snow. Just when I thought we had finally rounded the frozen bend this past week, the temperatures are scheduled to drop...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, February 16, 2014
The Garden remains encased in snow but my windmill palm seeds finally arrived in the mail. I’ve been coveting Trachycarpus fortunei ‘Wagnerianus’ for a while. This was even my second attempt to get my hands...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Somewhere in the wilds of western Pennsylvania, far away in an improbable place called Punxsutawney, that celebrated sybil of winter weather named Phil emerged this morning from his cozy, warm burrow...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, January 12, 2014
I have some good news to share with ardent fuchsiaphiles everywhere. Other botany and horticulture nuts as well. Heck, with everybody. I’m having a hard time keeping my excitement in check...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, January 17, 2014
My, how times flies. That eminent botanist, Leonhart Fuchs, turns five hundred and thirteen today. He was, in case you’ve been distracted the whole long time, the German physician, botanist and professor after whom the genus Fuchsia...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, January 05, 2014
That foreboding winter storm, incongruously identified with Hercules, finally arrived late Friday night. I would have preferred calling it after Ganglati, servant to goddess of the frozen northern underworld, Hel, but...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, January 02, 2014
I woke this new morning to find a beautiful dusting of snow covering the garden, like powdered sugar on a spice cake. We’re off to a fine start for the New Year! Except that there’s already six to eight inches of snow...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, December 23, 2013
Walking towards home this evening, I was slowly aware that an uncharacteristic stillness seemed to be falling all around along with the early darkness still so close to the winter solstice. Perhaps it was just me, and wishful thinking...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, December 13, 2013
The final cleanup of fall always seems to take me by surprise. Especially when the weather has had that golden crispness that usually settles in sometime during autumn here, when the summer’s heat and humidity have fallen back south. The City comes into its own then...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
Every year, as the weather cools and the garden’s summer green slowly fades to gold, I’m surprised again and delighted by how fall plays out even in this small urban space. The first performer is my potted purplebloom maple...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, November 07, 2013
Alfred Russel Wallace was one of the most brilliant scientists of the 19th century. A naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist, Wallace independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, November 05, 2013
Fall comes slowly to this sheltered garden. When other spots are past their peak, the leaves on the nearby trees seem to equivocate a bit longer here before they finally decide to turn their attention to the coming winter...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, November 11, 2013
If you’re like me and go crazy for kiku every fall, one of the best displays is at Longwood Gardens. Don’t dawdle. “The Miracle of a Thousand Blooms” is worth the visit alone...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Over the last couple of weeks, as fall has been slowly turning down the heat, I’ve become increasingly aware that something else is turning up. First the pumpkins and the mums...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Out front, on the street, the ginkgo leaves have finally fallen. They turned bright saffron-yellow and gold over the last week or two. Then suddenly, and seemingly all at once, they fell together...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, September 23, 2013
The autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, that fall tipping point into winter when the length of the night already equals the light of the day, usually slides by unnoticed by most. This year...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Something funny happened in the garden this morning. No, the squirrels didn’t leave a fruit basket on the back step with knock and a nice note apologizing for having gnawed off the lily buds...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, August 30, 2013
Friday. Early evening. A Long Day in the City so thought I’d have a quiet sit in the secret Conservatory Garden in Central Park. Check out the late-summer flowers. Take a few pictures….➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, August 31, 2013
”
Friday. Early evening. The Conservatory Garden in Central Park. Check out the late-summer flowers. Take a few pictures…” But on this particular Friday the garden was buzzing not with bees…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, October 07, 2013
Elephant ears, Colocasia esculenta, lives up to its name. It’s leaves are indeed big and floppy—positively brobdingnagian sometimes—and corms from some cultivars...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Ornamental peppers are hot. Literally. These decorative cultivars of Capsicum annuum are increasingly popular in beds and pots, even as house plants. They please with their attractive leaves and cute little blooms and really wow with…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
I’m in love with the greenhouses at Longwood. Have I said that enough? Well, maybe. But let me say it again anyway! I’m in love with the greenhouses at Longwood. Especially in the summer…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
”The botanick fire had set in me such a flame as is not to be quenched untill death”. Born in 1699 into a Quaker family in colonial Pennsylvania, John Bartram was to become...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Happy May Day everyone! In the spring, the four-acre Shakespeare Garden in Central Park becomes an absolute floral tapestry, just bursting with color. This landscape dates back to...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, April 15, 2013
The urban fuchsias live in the City. In a small garden. In a small apartment garden. With no greenhouse and precious little space to overwinter plants indoors, lots of them have to be sacrificed to reality...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, April 08, 2023
I do remember the first time I came across Fuchsia ‘Gartenmeister Bonstedt’. It was at a rather large, and I thought at the time, rather nice nursery. I was still mostly a teenager then. Fuchsias I already knew but...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, March 24, 2014
The vireyas are in bloom again and right now is the time to take in their deletable beauty in the Camellia House at Planting Fields Arboretum on Long Island. The Arboretum has a very under-appreciated bevy of vireya species and cultivars....➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Summer is now almost on us here in the City. Certainly the dew point is almost sixty-five degrees this misty morning. That’s a sure sign that our often humid, southern-flavored summers are...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, April 27, 2013
It’s firmly spring now but just a mere month ago it seemed like winter would never move out. What to do? Visit more conservatory greenhouses, of course! Especially if they hold two of the finest…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, March 21, 2013
The Estate Fruit House, part of the vast West Conservatory Complex at Longwood Gardens, is a carefully heated and ventilated greenhouse used for forcing crop plants...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, April 01, 2013
The dazzling floral displays inside the Main Conservatory of Longwood Garden’s huge complex of greenhouses changes seasonally so any visit there is likely to be met with…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, March 15, 2013
After visiting the Philly Flower Show last week, I wandered over to Longwood Gardens to check out what’s blooming in the Conservatory. It took awhile because the siren winter witch hazels…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Lucky for me, the Philadelphia Flower Show is just a couple of hours from home so I’ve been able to schedule a visit most years of the past decade and more. It’s been fun to...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, March 08, 2013
Every year the best and most compelling section of the Philadelphia Flower Show always seems to me to be the simplest one. The PHS Hamilton Horticourt is where…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
There are so many worthwhile exhibits to see every year at the Philadelphia Flower Show. Bring your good hiking shoes. Zigging and zagging back and forth, and back again...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, March 04, 2013
Beyond this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show’s “Brilliant” theme are again the many creative exhibitors who make the whole event so interesting every year. My personal favorite...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, March 02, 2013
“Brilliant!”, this year’s British-themed Philadelphia Flower Show, opened this week and runs from Saturday, March 2nd to Sunday, March 10th, 2013 in the Philadelphia Convention Center…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Coming back from a late winter’s jaunt to Texas, I took the opportunity to stop off at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden to check for signs of spring. I wasn’t disappointed...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Blizzard Nemo was billed as a snow storm of historic proportions well before it got here late on Friday night. It was certainly epic. Just not within New York City. The great blizzard of 1996…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, February 15, 2013
Blizzard Nemo passed through the City overnight and fairly quickly. By 8:00 am the next morning the skies were clearing rapidly. By 9:00 am they were brilliant blue...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, February 01, 2013
The third week of January was cold in the City. Very cold. With temperatures that dipped down to fifteen on a couple of nights even in my sheltered garden, and that went yet lower still... ➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, January 21, 2013
Most mornings might seem too short before it’s suddenly time for lunch, but the days of high summer are long. Near the garden’s restaurant is an extensive collection of daylilies...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, January 07, 2013
The winter sky was clear and the sunset looked to be promising so my friend and I couldn’t resist a detour on the walk home to take a stroll along the High Line before...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
On warmer days and nights that don't go below breezing, I sometimes set some of the plants back outside to take in the spa of cool, refreshing air. Right now...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
It's the beginning of January right now. Despite the incredible loop we were thrown by Hurricane Sandy just before Halloween last October, the weather this past fall has been a...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Monday, December 24, 2012
Walking around the City this time of year you can’t help but be struck by the endless variety of Christmas trees. There are the utilitarian and the exquisitely beautiful. The wacky and the...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, December 21, 2012
It’s late December and Christmas approaches. Rapidly. But I’m still feeling a lot more fallsy than Christmasy. This odd state of suspended animation is due in no small part, I think, to the fact that fall simply refuses to leave. It lingers…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, December 01, 2012
As the nights lengthen into winter, it’s time to catch up on some summer’s daylilies to liven things up a bit again. These beauties were from a visit to Montreal…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, November 01, 2024
Judging from the way botanists usually devise new names, you would think that Section Schufia, one of the twelve into which the genus Fuchsia is divided, was named to honor a famous and eminent botanist by the name of...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, October 07, 2012
It’s only the first week of October and tweets from all over arrive in seemingly rapid escalation. Freezes tonight from Missouri to Chicago. Frosts expected already in…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Plant names in botany can often seem alien or inscrutable, as if they landed on Earth on a scrap of paper fallen from the pocket of John Carter of Mars, or hitched a ride from the highest heights of Tibet...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Born in 1865 in Chatham, a small farming community located in New York’s Columbia County, Frank Bailey had accumulated a substantial fortune by 1911 when he purchased the old farm on the forty-three acres...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Saturday, April 21, 2012
What’s a person to do? Spring abounds. Even in the City, it won’t be ignored. Tulips and daffodils burst from tree wells and tumble from rowed water buckets at the corner deli. Fragrant hyacinths spread their heavy scent from…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, April 15, 2012
If you happen to be lucky enough find yourself in sunny southern California on the fuchsia trail—or any gardening trail as a matter of fact—a visit to Weidners’ Nursery in Encinitas…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, April 01, 2012
One of the world’s most creatively recycled urban spaces is New York’s High Line. Built on an old elevated freight rail line on Manhattan’s lower West Side, the High Line...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
I was at the Brooklyn Museum a week ago or so to see a closing exhibition one last time and took the opportunity to stroll around the Brooklyn Botanic Garden…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
About a month ago and a half ago, after the middle of December, I took some cuttings from the Fuchsia regia ssp. reitzii I have growing out in the garden, If you remember...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Friday, December 30, 2011
Despite that freak snowstorm that really walloped the Northeast corner of the United States a few days before Halloween this year, it’s actually been a long, slow slide...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Oh, all the fuchsia! One of the major frustrations for anyone who has ever searched for fuchsias on the Internet is the seemingly indiscriminate use of fuchsia to describe brightish-purplish-pinkish hues of pink…➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, March 15, 2012
As Shakespeare’s Juliet pined to her love, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The genus Fuchsia was named in honor of Leonard Fuchs...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
You can almost hear sighs of relief as the oppression of the summer’s heat and humidity fades away by the second half of September. It’s a respite that can play itself out...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Thursday, December 15, 2011
It’s finally here. As a gardener, I can procrastinate with the best of ‘em when it comes to putting things ready for the coming winter. Or maybe it’s just a denial of the inevitable. As I think about it...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
Sunday, January 01, 2012
The old gardening year slipped into the new with a spectacular last hurrah here at Fuchsias in the City. The day after Christmas, a blizzard dumped over twenty inches of snow...➤ Read MoreThe Fuchsia+Blog Tags — cultivars | fuchsia | hybridizers | fuchsia spotlight
