Fuchsia Round up 3: The very first pot

For todays fuchsia round up lets go right back to the very beginning- my four originals.  This is where my slightly overwhelming collection and the love affair with these little frilly flirts all began.  When I first saw the bank of little plug pants we chose just four, and a delightful little orange diascia to go in the large black pot that resides next to our driveway.  I would probably have bought more at the time, but the mother probably held me in check, she became less successful at this over the years.  May I just say on a side note; diascias are lovely little plants that I need to get back into my life.

This is such an old photo, probably should have titivated a little before I took it but you get the idea.  On the left is Bella Rosella, bright pink buds on the right are blackie

Southern Belle Bella Rosella- When I sat down to write this I could not remember the name of this one for love nor money, which is ironic because this really is the one that got me started.  What happened was upright Blackie flowered first, so when the pendular buds on this one got to a similar size I expected them to flower too.  But the first two ones just kept growing, and growing, and growing.  Those first two buds got obscenely large and I was completely transfixed.  It was only when they reached the size of lemons and I had spent a considerable amount of time on my hands and knees in the front garden staring at them that they finally flowered.

The very first two Bella Rosellas that came out, see how ginormous they are.  Also notice the whopping bud above it, thats about four times the size of a blackie bud

Huge and frilly; nothing else needs to be said.  Those first two blooms were so huge they only just fitted into the palm of my hand.  This is a 'Southern Belle', meaning its a huge double, and there are frills all round.  Mine has dark purple petals with lighter, almost baby pink sepals.  When looking this variety up elsewhere on the web I have found pictures of pink fuchsias labelled as this, I would like to think that mine is labelled correctly, but who knows mine could have been something else masquerading for years right under my nose.  None of the subsequent flowers have ever been quite as large, I think it put a lot of effort into those first two buds, but it was too late; completely hooked.

Bella Rosella bottoms, the interesting bits that you don't actually see day to day

Upright Blackie- Much much smaller than Bella Rosella, this one is about colour not size.  The petals are really dark, although not actually black like anything in the flower world, but near enough.  They are really striking, especially when grouped amongst the bright colours and pastels in the rest of the pot.  Still some frill-age, a delightful little number that I would highly recommend.

Spion Kop- A quite large, although not southern belle sized fuchsia in white and raspberry pink.  The formation of the petals of this one is really lovely, it always reminds me of a huge ruffled ballgown skirt as the petals are quite splayed out rather than being all tight and contained.  I liked it so much I ended up with two of them, one out the back as well.

Spion Kop at the front on the left, wendy's beauty on the right, the orange mass is diascia,
was called something like 'pumpkin'.  I think it all made for a rather nice display

Southern Belle Wendy's Beauty- This is basically exactly the same as Bella Rosella, just pale.  The petals are very very pale lilac, and the sepals are white.  A nice contraster to lots of colour, and obviously lovely big flowers.

I overwintered this pot by cutting the stems right down and then interweaving lots of fleece amongst them to keep the soil from freezing.  Helpfully the pot is situated on a drain cover so it keeps it just slightly warmer than it would have been.  After a couple of years I found that wendy's beauty started to take over the pot and the other varieties were struggling to elbow themselves some space.  I was going to keep this one, but I really fancy a change, its such a nice black pot and it would be great to try a new display in it.