Checkerboard: Checkerboard is an absolute favourite of mine and one of those that I am sure to miss now that I am outing with my vast collection. If you have read my previous fuchsia roundups something may have occurred to you. Checkerboard is not my usual type of girl as there is not a frill or a ruffle in sight. You'd have been forgiven for thinking that I may find Checkerboards' skinny blooms uninteresting having favoured a slightly fuller figure in the past. But as with anything over time, tastes change and where as my attention was once captured by ample frills, in the last year or two its colour that has been doing it for me.
If you are looking for intense colour, then Checkerboard is one of the finest in my opinion. It is also the only fuchsia I can think of that actually looks better in bud before it comes properly into flower. The buds hang like gem coloured pendulums, bright, simple and sophisticated. The buds have a really long 'tube', yes its the technical term apparently, which is bright red with an absolute pristine white bud end (not the technical term). The red tubes actually rather remind me of strawberry laces. Thats a rather plastic looking dark pinky red sweet for anybody not in the know. Even buried amongst my masses, these buds sing out.
When these little buds of joy do open, they are still little lookers, even if I personally think their best moment is over. There is no explosion of ruffles, no sudden pouf of petals, the sepals merely peel back to form a white star around a very small skirt of bright red petals. This is a perfect mixture of refined form and refined colour, I love it. Maybe it might survive the cold after all?....
Hawaiian Sunset: Its funny, looking back at a little note I made when I took photos I was rather surprised to see it said "Hawaiian Sunset: chuck". I had just been admiring how nice it was and yet my judgement on its' future was swift and un resolving. This unoffending dark pinky red fuchsia had to go. Why? I ask myself. The answer lies in the adjective I used to describe it above: nice. Hawaiian Sunset is nice; it isn't amazing, its not the best thing ever, its just perfectly ok.
Unfortunately for Hawaiian, nice just isn't enough to cut it in my garden. Space in the borders is at an all time premium, the lawn is already under threat from my spade and thats without taking into account the forty gladiolus bulbs that will shortly be wending their way to my doorstep. Even if I wasn't throwing out my entire collection I would be disposing of Hawaiian. I only have room for plants that grab the eyeballs with both hands and say 'hey! look at me, am I not wonderful?" or give the nose a solid honk while on your way past.
There are things about Hawaiian that I do rather like. I enjoy the fact that the stamen are exactly the same shade as the petals and remain encased within their frilly caocoon, refraining from poking their heads out as other varieties do. The colour is also very pleasing, but other than that I find it unremarkable in size or structure and could possibly, if asked, list ten others I prefer.
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