Fuchsia speciosa is a reluctant shrub in the Northwest, where it behaves more like a hardy perennial dying to the ground each year and returning from the roots. After our hard winter last year and without a protective mulch -- I like to call my forgetfulness “experimentation”-- I was surprised to see it return in late spring. And return it did, bigger and better than ever.
Fuchsia speciosa is a reluctant bloomer here. I barely begins to bloom before the cold sets in and shuts it down. But this year the prolonged summer is just what it wants. Warm sunny days and cool nights are following us all the way into October. It’s flowering in orangey abandon like never before.
I am not usually this patient with a plant. But as I have said I have a weakness for fuchsias. If it were any other plant I might have ripped it out by now.
I’m glad I didn’t.
