Why fuchsia snobs should think again

Banished for being blowsy and vulgar, the much-maligned fuchsia is at last being welcomed back into society

- John Hoyland

WHEN gardening friends tell me that they cannot abide pelargoniums or that they would never allow gladioli into their borders or that begonias are far too vulgar for their garden, my response is always the same: they don’t know the family well enough and I can guarantee that there is at least one plant that will soften their stone hearts.

The same goes for fuchsias. Often dismissed for having baroque flowers in gaudy colours, among the 100 or so species and the thousands of cultivars and hybrids, there are ones that will sit comfortably in any garden. If you find the more ostentatious hybrids too garish, then look to the elegance and simplicity of the species; on the other hand, if you think the modesty of the species more suited to a botanic garden, you will be overwhelmed by the range of showy, hybrid examples.

Fuchsias are mainly native to South America and include plants only a few inches tall, as well as shrubs that reach 12ft high. There is even, in the genus, a tree that grows to 30ft. The flowers consist of a group of petals that form a tube covered, in bud, by four long sepals. In most wild species, the sepals are red and the petals purple, colours said to be most attractive to the hummingbirds that pollinate the flowers. It is the peculiar structure and bicoloured aspect of the flower that breeders have exploited to develop flamboyant hybrids.

At the demure end of the spectrum,