Fuchsias with their exotic, colorful flowers are popular ornamental plants for balconies and terraces. The perennial (but not hardy!), usually bushy plants become lignified with age and can therefore be easily raised as standard stems.

With a little patience, a fuchsia can be raised to become a trunk

The right location for your fuchsia trunk

Like so many fuchsias, fuchsia strains also prefer a light location where they don't want to be exposed to direct sunlight. Although there are some sun-tolerant varieties, fuchsias, as typical rainforest plants, tend to need light shade. A moderately nutrient-rich, loose and humus-rich soil is suitable as a substrate. Above all, make sure that the pot drainage is good, because fuchsias do not tolerate waterlogging.

This is how you train a cutting to become a standard fuchsia

In order to successfully raise a young fuchsia cutting to a fuchsia stem, you need a lot of patience - and the right variety. Choose a strong-growing fuchsia that grows as upright as possible (some half-hanging ones are also suitable) and cut about 10 to 15 centimeters long cuttings from it in July.

  • Remove all but the top four leaves.
  • Plant the cuttings in a sand and peat mixture
  • or alternatively in commercially available potting soil.
  • Place the seed pots (€16.68) in a sheltered spot.
  • The cuttings are rooted as soon as new leaves form.
  • Plant the rooted cuttings in a mixture of sand and all-purpose or potting soil.
  • Remove any new leaves and shoots.
  • If necessary, support the young fuchsia with a stake.

Further leaves and shoots are removed from the main trunk until it has reached the desired height. Now you can let them grow and shape the crown of the tree with targeted pruning.

Cut the standard fuchsia correctly

Regularly before putting them into winter quarters, you should cut back the fuchsia trunk by about a third to half, whereby the flowering shoots and yellowed and dried out shoots in particular should be removed. The actual shape cut finally takes place in February, shortly before the end of the winter break. In doing so, you take back the previous year's annual shoots to a maximum of two pairs of leaves and also cut away dried and wilted shoots. Regular pruning is very important with fuchsias, otherwise the plants will age from the inside and produce fewer and fewer flowers.

tips

Make sure you cut as little as possible into the old wood - depending on the type and variety, it will be very difficult for your fuchsia standard to sprout out of it again.

Category:

Indoor plants