For the past twenty five years here at Bush’s Nursery we have been succsefully propagating hardy fuchsias. For our newbie friends these are perennial fuchsias that are planted directly in the ground as opposed to the hanging basket varieties that you normally see dangling from your grand parents porch or aunty’s eves. While extraordinarily gorgeous, these varieties, if you plan on wintering them over, require being cut back, some indoor protection such as a garage or basement and a small amount of watering throughout our Pacific Northwest winters. The hardies, on the other hand, are quite happy to to drop thir leaves and the last of their late blooming flowers in late november early december. We have had a variety called “Jingle Bells” that actually still had blossoms on it Christmas day.

O.K., lets get back to what I promised you in the title; getting these beauties started from tip cuttings. Considering the delicate look of the plant it is actually quite forgiving when it come to giving itself up to your manicure sissors and will easily make you feel quite competent on your first try. Our stock container, or mother plants are cut back in late sumer and kept in a green house at fifty degrees when the weather turns cold. This forces a great amount of new tip growth used for the new fuchsias to be. If you dont have a green house simply take your cuttings soon enough in late summer for a new plant to beable to develop a good root system before the freeze sets in in your area say around 7 to 9 weeks.