Preparations for winter started

   

   Warm and rainy September is over and October is cooling the garden. No frost so far and dahlias are still vividly blooming. Fuchsias were flowering amazingly during past few weeks. They were happy for cooler temperatures and flowers were opening huge, especially Bella Rosella. On the title photo taken today morning the flowers are as large as a big apple.

   Anyway it's time to prepare fuchsias to winter storage and I'm glad that I did it today. All leaves and green stem parts were pruned. Now they are ready to go to the basement and wait there until next spring.

Fuchsias like rainy weather

   Last weeks we had a lot of rains. Temperatures are mild 17-21°C. So perfect conditions for fuchsias. They don't like it when it's too warm even if they are standing in a shade. Now almost all my new fuchsias are flowering and it's time to take pictures. First my current favourite Smokey Mountain. Nice compact bush which is described at Rockdala homepage as upright so I let it grow with a support. But it looks to me like trailing variety, and it is a trailer according to registration in American Fuchsia Society. So not all information on Rockdala site is correct, I better should check it with several sources.

Smokey Mountain

   Finally I got a chance to see flowering of my Nightingale. This plant I have since last year in a basket together with Ice Maiden and Pink Marshmallow. It's rather weak plant especially on a background of its basket neighbors. But the first 2 flowers were gorgeous, large fully double bright pink flushed with white.

Nightingale

   Flowers of English Rose match its name. They look like a small double roses with their fully flared corolla. Flower is changing its shape and color with age.

English Rose

   Flowers of Beauty of Meise and Naughty Nicole look a bit alike. Beauty of Meise has slightly darker corolla than Naughty Nicole. Plants are different, upright and trailing respectively.

Beauty of Meise

Naughty Nicole

   Plants of Satellite and Rocket Fire I'm training as standards following recomendations from Wenches Fuchsiablog. Both plants are already about 80 cm tall and started to flower.

   Satellite has very large single flowers with white petals and coral red corolla flushed with white. Rocket Fire flowers are large heavy double dark pink with violet corolla.

Satellite

Rocket Fire

   The darkest color in my collection have flowers of Rohees Prins. It's half-trailing variety unlike it's said in Rockdala's description. The flowers are medium size. Corolla is of darkest aubergine color that holds well through a flower lifetime.

Rohees Prins

Fuchsias starting to flower

   It's beginning of June and some of my fuchsias started to flower. I managed to keep 3 varieties in a hanging basket from last year and these plants were first to flower. Ice Maiden is a very strong plant with many shoots with good sun tolerance. I hope it's going to get plenty of flowers in a couple of weeks.

Ice Maiden

   Next was Pink Marshmallow. So far there were 2 flowers opening but I managed to shoot only buds which looked very tasty. When I found time to shoot flowers they were already worn down due to windy days. So flower picture will come in the next fuchsia post.

Pink Marshmallow

   The third variety in this overwintered basket is Nightingale. It's much weaker than its basket mates and just started to develop first buds. It didn't flower last year so I'm looking forward to see how it looks like. Therefore some of newly purchased varieties began to flower and impress me very much. First was Bella Rozella. Despite its rather small size the plant produced 4 full size flowers of amazing deep pink iridescent color difficult to catch in a photo.

Bella Rozella

   Swingtime started to flower very nicely. I got this variety again since I kept it couple of seasons ago on my balcony where its flowering was very prolific during all season despite plenty of sun and wind it was getting. Now I have 2 plants and both just started to flower. Flowers are not very large but very bright and buds are very decorative as well.

Swingtime

   Flower of Deep Purple that opened couple of days ago is really magnificent as they describe it on in Wibrant Trädgård Rockdala webshop. Contrast between porcelain white sepals and deep purple petals is very striking. Both buds and flowers have very elegant elongated shape. Flowers are large and there are a lot of them ready to open. The plant is vigorous of beautifully hanging habit.

Deep Purple

   More fuchsias are putting out buds so new pictures are coming soon.



   На дворе июнь, и мои фуксии набирают цвет. Первыми зацвели растения сохраненные с прошлого года. Сорт Ice Maiden вырос мощным кустом с сильными поникающими побегами и хорошей устойчивостью к солнцу. Надеюсь, что через пару недель растение обильно зацветет.
   Следующим зацвел Pink Marshmallow. У него я успела сфотографировать только бутоны, выглядящие очень вкусно в соответствии с названием. Когда я собралась фотографировать цветки, они оказались уже довольно потрепаны сильным ветром. Так что фото раскрывшихся цветков будет в следующем фуксиевом сообщении.
   Вместе с этими двумя сортами в той же подвесной корзине перезимовал сорт Nightingale. Но это растение несколько слабее своих соседей и только начало набирать бутоны. Сорт не цвел в прошлом году, так что мне будет тем более интересно увидет его цветение. Зато уже цветут некоторые из новых для меня сортов. Первым зацвел Bella Rozella. Несмотря на скромный размер растение Bella Rozella выпустило 4 полноразмерных цветка глубокого переливающегося розового цвета, который очень трудно передать на фото.
   Swingtime сорт, который когда-то жил у меня на балконе, хорошо переносящий солнце и ветер. Цветки не очень крупные, но очень нарядные и обильные.
   Самым моим любимым на сегодняшний день сортом является Deep Purple. Цветки крупные, элегантной вытянутой формы. Впечатляет контаст между фарфорово-белыми чашелистиками и темно-фиолетовыми лепестками. Растение сильное с длинными поникающими побегами.

Fuchsia inventory

   From Kista Mässan yesterday I got not only nice fuchsia pictures but also some starter plants. 10 different varieties all new to me. I spent all afternoon planting them in pots and realized that I don't have an inventory of my fuchsia collection. Although there are less fuchsia varieties in my collection than in dahlia or hosta collections but still they all have to be taken care of and properly listed in my Filemaker database. Since last year I successfully managed to overwinter a basket with 3 fuchsia varieties. Then I got 3 more fuchsias from Björn as a present for the Women's day on March 8^th. And 10 more varieties yesterday.

Annabel Stubbs	Beauty Of Meise	Bella Rozella	Deep Purple	English rose
Ice Maiden	Ijzerwinning	Natasha Sinton	Naughty Nicole	Nightingale
Pink Marshmallow	Rocket Fire	Rohees Prins	Satellite	Swingtime
Fuchsia pictures are borrowed from Wibrant Trädgård Rockdala

   Almost forgot to mention one more fuchsia that I got from Björn. It's called Fuchsia procumbens or Creeping fuchsia. I never heard about it before and it was interesting find out that it's native to North Island of New Zealand and is hardy to -6°C. It has a nice trailing habit and very exotic looking flowers. I'm looking forward to see how it will grow for me.

Picture borrowed from UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research


   С садовой выставки, на которую мы вчера ходили, я принесла не только фотографии фуксий, но и укорененные черенки 10-ти разных сортов. Рассаживая их по горшкам, я подумала, что надо бы провести инвентаризацию моей небольшой коллекции фуксий. И хотя их у меня не так много как георгин или хост, фуксии тоже должны быть внесены в базу данных. С прошлого года мне удалось сохранить три сорта, еще три я получила в подарок от Бьёрна на 8-е марта, и вот теперь еще десяток добавился.
   Из подаренных Бьёрном фуксий одна оказалась совершенно необычной. Это Fuchsia procumbens или Фуксия лежачая. Родом с острова Северный в Новой Зеландии эта фуксия довольно морозостойка, до -6°C. Растение хорошо подходит для подвесных корзин, т.к. обладает длинными висячими побегами. Цветки совсем не похожи на цветки гибридных фуксий. С нетерпением жду теперь, как она будет расти у меня летом.

Kista Mässan Rum & Trädgård

   First garden exhibition of the season. Small garden part of Rum & Trädgård in Kista Mässan is a sort of anticipation of Nordiska Trädgårdar that starts in less than 2 weeks. The nicest exhibitor of the day was Wibrant Trädgård Rockdala with a great choice of Fuchsia starter plants.

   They also had show adult plants in full bloom. Some of them look like small trees or bushes. Very nice way to show what can grow out of tiny starters.

   Two exhibitors from Holland had good choice of bulbs and tubers. I couldn't resist to buy 2 dahlias, one of them, Giraffe, was chosen by Björn.

   Here come some more pictures from the exhibition.