A future for Fuchsias.

Fuchsias are really easy to grow and trouble free except for Fuchsia rust, Fuchsia gall mite, Fuchsia flea beetle, capsid bug, apple moth, vine weevil and whitefly. They also don’t enjoy being very hot and dry.

There was a time when the only concern anyone ever had about them was whether they were hardy; no longer. It really has reached the point now where it is becoming questionable whether they are worth growing at all. Gall mite, if left unchecked, puts it beyond questionable.

We have about fifty varieties growing in pots and a similar number growing in the garden. Gall mite appeared on one in the garden some years ago. I cut the affected shoots six inches or so behind the infection and binned it, then checked the plant every day for weeks to see if it reappeared, which it didn’t. The next outbreak was two years later, the same procedure was followed and again the problem vanished. The following year it was back on a number of plants and was not so easily contained. It has appeared every year since and gets worse each time.

In the garden I have been cutting almost all the plants back in autumn and cleaning around them. I’m hoping that several months with no food supply will inconvenience them. The only plants not hard pruned are the “climbing” ‘Lady in Black’, where I don’t want to start from ground level to cover a large trellis area, and F. microphylla, which is usually in full flower in the last two or three months of the year and which so far has been unaffected. All the pot grown plants get cut back hard before going into a greenhouse or polytunnel for winter.

It has been midsummer before we have started seeing symptoms and unfortunately it is all too easy to overlook. The first affected shoot sparks a frantic search of all our plants and invariably more is found. If it is one or two shoots then I remove them, if it is over a considerable part of the plant I cut it back hard and carefully defoliate it before putting it in a glasshouse to reshoot. I have not needed to be so draconian on a plant in the garden, yet. A plant of ‘Grace Bell’ that I cut back and put in the greenhouse a few weeks ago has new shoots on it, some of them still infected. It has been denuded a second time. It won’t get a third chance.

Insofar as the problem is getting worse each year, I am clearly not doing enough. Whether being more vigilant and catching it earlier, or more draconian when I find it, or taking some further action, would allow me to get on top of it more successfully, I don’t know. It is much more of a problem with the plants in pots than those in the ground, which I put down to them being massed together whereas the garden plants are spread about.

I would be very hesitant to draw any firm conclusions from our experience in regard to whether any varieties are less susceptible or immune. A plant of a particular variety in one place gets badly infected while another elsewhere is unaffected. I haven’t yet seen it on any of our encliandras (those with the tiny flowers such as microphylla) even when they’ve been pot grown and adjacent to affected varieties. It may be that some varieties show little or no symptoms, which could be a problem in that they may then be a source of infection to other plants.

We have always had problems with capsid. These fast moving and elusive insects are like large aphids and feed in similar fashion, inserting their needle-like mouthparts into the tender growing tips of the plant, injecting digestive juices and sucking the mix back. As the shoots develop and the leaves expand, they are revealed to be distorted and full of holes because some bits of tissue have been killed. The bigger problem is that the shoots don’t produce flower buds. Usually, by midsummer their numbers are much reduced and flowering gets under way in late summer. Given that I am cutting the plants back hard each year, it is not delaying flowering by a great deal.

For the last couple of years the capsids have been joined by flea beetles. Fuchsia flea beetles are about 5mm long and glossy blue-black. They jump when disturbed, hence the name. Their larvae are greenish and feed on the underside of the leaves, leaving the top surface intact but doing extensive damage. It’s not clear to me where the capsid damage finishes and flea beetle damage begins. Shoot tips are killed, new growth stopped or stunted, flower bud formation severely curtailed. The worst problems seem to be in one smallish area in the middle of the garden but I don’t understand why.

We used to have a lot of conifers in the garden. There is now only one. They were never troubled by pests or diseases, just outgrew where they were and gradually got removed. They were never replaced with the same or a different conifer, always with something entirely different. I foresee the same thing happening with Fuchsias; badly infected plants getting removed, plants dying from old age, none getting propagated and all gradually being replaced with something other than Fuchsias. Perhaps time will prove some varieties to be immune, perhaps with far fewer of them it will be easier to manage as a pest. I hold out no hope of anyone coming up with a cure. Perhaps there are breeders out there who are working to produce immune varieties but that will be a long term solution at best.

The RHS website has a short list of varieties “noted as being les susceptible”, but it is too short to form the basis for replacing a decent collection. They are ‘Baby Chang’, ‘Cinnabarina’, ‘Miniature Jewels’, ‘Space Shuttle’, Fuchsia microphylla subsp. hidalgensis, Fuchsia thymifolia and Fuchsia venusta.