Hummingbird Herald. Next Meeting March 16, 2011 Distribution of Project Plants. President s Message. Crescent City Fuchsia Society

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1 March 2011 Volume 11 Issue 3 Hummingbird Herald Crescent City Fuchsia Society President s Message Next Meeting March 16, 2011 Distribution of Project Plants First, a shout of thanks to Mark and Don for their great program in February. Mark covered potting mixes; Don had an interesting program (using our new computer-connected projector) with pictures of his fuchsia crosses. Some of them look like they will be great. Beautiful blossoms, and so we look forward to seeing his actual plants in bloom. Remember that our project plants will be available to be picked up on Saturday, March 5th. We appreciate that Don and Barbara drove up to The Earthworks ( in Covington, WA. to pick them up, and thank them very much for making that long drive for us in this rainy weather we ve been having. The project plants will have to be babysat until the Spring Sale in April. If you can help out by minding some plants, please contact Gay, Don, or me. It is with great sorrow that we note the passing of one of our current members, Buzz Houtz, on Saturday, February 26th. There was a cemetery service on Wednesday, March 2nd. Buzz and Blandy joined our fuchsia Club in 2005, and were enthusiastic supporters. On our Garden Tour, we always enjoyed seeing the fruits of the hard work Buzz and Blandy expended on their yard, from the flower beds to the pond, gazebo, and Inside this Issue many bird houses. We look forward to continue seeing Blandy, and supporting her, at our meetings. President s Message 1 Buzz death comes on the heals of the recent passing of David Doc Cooper on February 5th. David and Mona Cooper were long time Club members until David s ill health necessitated their cutting back on their activities. Club Notes 2 Project and Spring Sale Plant Care 3 Until we meet at our next meeting, Your fuchsia friend, Mariallyce. Editor Karen Fleming cybergal131@yahoo.com Heirloom Fuchsia 4 What Not to do with Fuchsias March Checklist 5 4

2 Meet Mr. Twister This is the name Don plans to bestow upon this delightful new cross, depending on how well it does this year. Note the way the sepals twist around the stem. Totally charming! Thanks, Don, for sharing this lovely creation with us. Club Notes Dues can be paid to Karen at our March 16 meeting or mailed to the Club s post office box. The full address is on the last page of the Hummingbird Herald. Dues for 2011 are: Single Couple CCFS $ 5.00 $ 8.00 AFS $24.00 $30.00 Caroline, a single upright with beautiful pink/pinkish-lavender blooms, was the fuchsia Don and Barbara picked up from Earthworks.. Plants will be available to be picked up for babysitting until the Spring Sale from either Don and Barbara s house on Saturday, March 5th or the March 16th dinner meeting. Gay McWhirter will be coordinating our Spring Sale on Saturday, April 23rd. This month s Heirloom Fuchsia is Black Prince. It is also the featured fuchsia on the opening page of our website so you can compare the photo on the site with the photo on page 4. The website is Check it out. Page 2 Hummingbird Herald

3 PROJECT AND SPRING SALE PLANT CARE by Don Helsel This March we are receiving both our Club Project plants and starts for our spring fuchsia sale. This raises the question, How should I care for these plants? The thing to keep in mind is that we have two distinctly different goals with these plants. With the club project plant our goal is growing something close to a show plant, meaning something with good shape and lots and lots of blossoms. Our plants come in a 2 pot and need to immediately be potted up into a 4 pot. Then, when it fills that pot with roots, pot it up again to a 6 pot. To promote a good shape and lots of branches the center growing tip of each branch should be pinched out when the branch has developed two sets of leaves. Repeat this process as soon as the new branches have two sets of leaves. Our project plant this year is a large pink single. What that means is that we stop pinching eight to ten weeks before the fair, which means the last week of May. Any pinching after that date should be minimal, only to control shape. Flower buds take 8-10 to develop. Plants for the spring sale and later for the fair, have a very different goal. Putting it simply, FLOWERS SELL PLANTS, which means we want a taller plant, with flowers if possible. We should do very limited pinching of our sale plants to control branches going in unwanted directions. I do mean limited pinching. If you recall from fairs in the past, the plants we cannot sell invariably have no blossoms. The sale plants do need to be potted up just like our project plants. They should be in a 4 pot for the spring sale and a 6 pot for the fair. For both these groups, they do need to be fertilized regularly. The best is a water soluble fertilizer with a formula of but other fertilizers will work. The important point is to apply the fertilizer at half the recommended strength every days. We have had growers in the past ignore that recommendation and then they wonder why their plants don t grow well and have a funny reddish color. This happens when the fertilizer is too strong and kills the fine feeder roots but not the plant. So remember half the recommended dosage strength every days. The last point is about pests. We cannot sell plants with visible evidence of pests or disease. Fortunately we have few pests in our area to bother our fuchsias with one glaring exception. We are plagued with the fuchsia mite. While the mite may always be present, a little control early in the season keeps it from getting out of control and destroying our plants late in the season. When looking for a control agent, consider a systemic spray that specifically says it will kill mites in general. The fuchsia mites name will probably not be listed on the label. Follow the directions to the letter. It is virtually guaranteed that if you have an outbreak of the fuchsia mite, it is because you got a little lazy and postponed treatment until it was too late. Once established the fuchsia mite is very hard to control except through very extreme measures. Help Wanted Written Contributions for the HH (your own or something by someone else which strikes your fancy). All submissions gratefully accepted. Volume 11, Issue 3 Page 3

4 Heirloom Fuchsia Black Prince Black Prince is a perennial shrub which can grow to 2-4 feet in size, upright, erect or weeping, with red tubes and sepals and dark purple corollas. In fact, the corolla is almost pitch black when open. Black Prince may be a somewhat slow grower but it is a prolific bloomer. It flourishes in zones 9a to 11b, enjoying shade to partial shade, flowering from late spring through early fall. : Banks, Photo: Fuchsias from Kenneth in Stockholm ( WHAT NOT TO DO WITH FUCHSIAS Ideas to Help You to Grow Really Nice Fuchsia Plants or an Award-winning Show Plant DON T BUY A FUCHSIA THAT HAS A WOODY STEM AND LOOKS TIRED. -- The pot is probably full of roots and will be hard to rehabilitate into a vigorous plant. DON T BUY A LONG SKINNY PLANT. -- Except when you are starting a fuchsia tree, the plant should be bushy and healthy. I count stems. DON T PLANT A 2 POTTED FUCHSIA IN A 6 PORT OR LARGER. -- Too much root room easily leads to rotted roots from too much water. Move from a 2 to a 4 to a 6, etc. You will have a much healthier plant. DON T USE SOIL FROM YOUR YARD, OR LAST YEAR S USED SOIL, FOR NEW PLANTINGS. -- Use soil mix prepared for container growth. DON T FORGET TO PINCH THE TIPS OF SMALL FUCHSIAS REGULARLY TO ENCOURAGE BUSHY PLANTS. -- Especially if new plants have flower buds, pinch tips of all stems until you have a nice shape, and then let the blooms grow. You will have many, many more blooms with all the extra stem tops. DON T LEAVE POTTED FUCHSIA PLANTS OUTDOORS IN SPRING BELOW Cold weather will stunt growth when plants are accustomed to warmer temperatures. Frost will burn or kill, especially if the sun comes out early. Faye Spidell-Roberts (Former Owner of Delta Farm & Nursery, Eugene, OR) Page 4 Hummingbird Herald

5 MARCH CHECKLIST by Chuck Hassett PINCH, PINCH, PINCH: Early and frequent tip-pinching of new growth in the spring is the key to growing bushy plants with lots of flowers. Some fuchsias are naturally compact and self-branching, while others are long jointed and become leggy without heavy pinching. Some of my favorite trailing varieties, such as Pink Marshmallow and Taffeta Bow, are quite long-jointed and need to be grown with plenty of light and to be pinched after one set of leaves has formed on each new branch. Begin as soon as the new shoots come out and the growing tips are large enough to get a hold of with fingernails or clippers. Heavy pinching at this time will help develop a full crown which is so essential to a beautiful show plant. R.A.F. on the other hand is short jointed and compact with less pinching. Removing the tips after two sets of leaves are formed will give you a bushy plant covered with blossoms over the entire crown. Pay special attention to the pinching now, and then allow up to ten weeks for undisturbed growth and flower development. You can time your plants to be in peak bloom for a special event at home and for exhibition at a show this summer. In warm weather and strong light you can pinch a single flowered fuchsia up until six weeks before showtime, but double flowered fuchsias generally require an extra two weeks for bud development and flowering, even more if the weather is cool and cloudy. ROOT SOME SPRING CUTTINGS: Softwood cuttings make vigorous plants. For cutting material allow some new shoots to form at least three sets of leaves. Cut the stem just below the third joint, remove the lower set of leaves and insert the lower joint in a sterile rooting medium, such as vermiculite. Spring cuttings are tender and need careful handling. Hold them by the leaves rather than the stem, Softwood cuttings form roots quickly but the leaves must be kept from drying out. Avoid direct sunlight and keep the humidity high by frequent misting. The propagating bed should have good ventilation but not excessive wind. Bottom heat, at about 65ºF, will speed up the rooting process to as quickly as ten days. Without bottom heat it make take thirty days. By all means label each cutting with the correct cultivar or species name. Don t depend on your memory to recall the name later. Put a date on the label as a reminder of how long the cutting has been in the medium. Cuttings can be safely checked for roots by gently lifting them with a fork. Sometimes a slight tug on a leaf will reveal whether there is resistance from a root system. Cuttings with roots an inch long should be potted into 2½ containers of good pasteurized soil mix. If well cared for and potted before getting root bound, a spring cutting can be grown into a beautiful blooming plant by August. CONTROL THE FUCHSIA MITE: Fuchsia mite infestations are easily spread. Please keep fuchsia mite galls pruned off and destroyed, spray every two weeks and avoid transporting infested plants to other areas. LOOK FOR NEW STARTER PLANTS IN NURSERIES: Many specialist fuchsia nurseries will be offering some of the new 1984 introductions as well as old favorites in the economical 3 inch size during March. This is a good time to start some new baskets for mid to late summer bloom. Excerpted from AFS Bulletin, March 1984 Volume 11, Issue 3 Page 5

6 Check out A Fuchsia Primer available in our Country Store. UPCOMING EVENTS March 16 Distribution of project plants Galfrey Lye, single, lax, white tipped pink/dark carmine pink, mite resistant, one of Dr. Peter Baye s crosses. Thanks to Director Andrea for this terrific photo from her garden. April 20 Bonsai and topiary April 23 (Saturday) Fuchsia Club plant sale May 18 Wild Bird and Backyard June 15 Fair prep Crescent City Fuchsia Society ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED P.O. Box 432 Crescent City, CA Members of the Board of Directors Officers and Directors President Mariallyce Sanger Vice-President Don Helsel Secretary Mary Anne Buckles Treasurer Barbara Helsel Directors Gay McWhirter Andrea Dahlberg Mark Danner Join us to learn more about growing beautiful fuchsias! We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting of the Crescent City Fuchsia Society.