# The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory/Chapter 9

CHAPTER IX.
THE FUCHSIA.
The Fuchsia needs no praise, and strange to say, there is not much to be said on the subject of its cultivation. At all events it is our intention to dispose of the matter in a few words, and we shall have to include in a short chapter all that really need be said about it. If we hammer too hard and too long on a soft subject, we shall probably crush it out of all identification, and none of our readers would wish to see the fuchsia obliterated by needlessly prolix directions for its cultivation.
The fuchsia requires to be grown rather fast, and therefore a starving system must not be practised. It loves warmth and moisture and some amount of sunshine. It cannot endure a dry soil or a dry air and a long-continued roasting glare of sunshine. No matter whether you wish to grow nice little bushes for a small greenhouse or the sitting-room window, or giant pyramids for a flower-show, the routine practice will be very nearly the same, and the few differences to be made will be taken note of in the directions that follow.
If grand specimens are desired take cuttings in September, but if only plants of moderate size, take them in spring as soon as you can get them. In the month of February prune a few old plants into shape and put them in a temperature of 60°, and keep them regularly syringed. In the course of a month they will supply you with any number of cuttings, and to strike these is the simplest task in propagating the greenhouse will ever afford you.
At the earliest moment the cuttings should be potted off into small sixties and soon after be shifted into forty-eights, then into twenty-fours, and, lastly, into eights or sixes. The size of the final shift must be determined upon by the cultivator, but if very large plants are wanted the last size is the ​best; and when plants are grown exclusively for the conservatory,
PYRAMID FUCHSIA (Six months old).
twelves are a very handy size. It is a bad plan to over-pot at any time, but they should not get much pot-bound,
SPECIMEN PYRAMID FUCHSIA (Second year)
​for the roots are too slow in finding their way into the fresh soil, and the whole mass will in consequence get sour.
For a compost use two parts nice fibry loam, and one part thoroughly decayed manure with a little rotten leaf mould and a good sprinkling of silver sand. If the loam is deficient in fibre, it is best to have one part of rough peat and two of loam. A little cocoa-nut fibre refuse is very well to mix with the soil; it keeps it open and porous, and assists the formation and easy extension of the roots; but it is not advisable to add much of the refuse, for it will not afford much nourishment to the plants. The soil should be used rough; the larger the pot, the more lumpy should the soil be. The pots should be moderately well drained and the plants potted firm, but not rammed too hard. If the plants do well, they will make good-sized specimens, suitable for exhibiting in September; but it is advisable not to allow them to flower the first year when they are intended exclusively for exhibition, and then they make good plants for the following season.
The best shape to train them to is the pyramidal, and every care must be exercised to get them well furnished to the very bottom. Sometimes the plants will throw side shoots close to the soil, and at others they will not do so without stopping. But at all times it is as well to nip the top out when they get about a foot high; it strengthens the side shoots. As soon as these shoots are three or four joints long they must have their tops nipped out, and as they grow again they must be regularly pinched, to get them into a good shape, and if the leading shoot is inclined to rob the side branches, it is best to stop it, and let another young one run up. The main stem must have a good stout stake to keep it upright. For standards no training is required beyond rubbing off the side shoots, and letting the main stem run up to whatever height is required. It must then be topped and allowed to throw out shoots, which must be pinched twice or three times to form a handsome head. For dwarf bushes, the young plants must be stopped when eight or nine inches high, the young shoots again stopped and then trained out neatly with sticks.
The plants should be stood out of doors for a month or so to ripen the wood in the autumn, but they should be housed before any severe frost sets in, for though a few degrees will not do much harm, they are quite as well without it. It is a bad plan to store the plants away for the winter in outhouses, ​where they can receive no attention; they never break so regularly and well in the spring if they get dry during winter, though it is very little water that they want for three or four months in the dormant season. Well made standards must, indeed, be kept growing slowly all the winter.
Prune the old plants towards the end of February, and stand them in a peach-house which has been started a few weeks before, and as soon as they begin to break take them out of the pots, and remove as much of the old soil from them as you can without injuring the roots, and put them into pots two sizes smaller or in the same pots again, and keep them well syringed from the time they are started until they begin to flower. From 50° to 60° is a good heat for growing fuchsias at all times, but if they are wanted to be in flower at any particular time, they will stand 70° or 80°, but of course the wood is much longer jointed when they are grown in a high temperature. The plants should not be stopped for sis weeks to two months before they are expected to be in flower. If the drainage is good, they will take plenty of water when in vigorous growth, and a dose of weak manure water twice a week will be highly advantageous in promoting the growth and production of large finely-coloured flowers. It is not advisable to shade fuchsias much, though they will not stand much sunshine. It is also not well to play the syringe on them when they are in flower, for the splashing about of the water disfigures the leaves. Any kind of liquid manure will do for fuchsias, if it is not too strong. If you have to prepare it for them there can be no better plan than to put fresh horse droppings into a tub of soft water, and to use the solution quite clear and diluted to the colour of pale ale. It should be of the same temperature as the house the plants are in, or even one or two degrees warmer: colder it must not be.