Prune to Bring Back a Fuchsia

Question: Last spring, I bought a fuchsia basket that grew beautifully for the whole summer and fall. Now it is straggly and unattractive. Is it possible to make it beautiful again or should I just throw it out and start over?

M.W., Laguna Woods

Answer: Don’t throw it out. Proper pruning will make your fuchsia just as full and beautiful as last year.

The key to proper pruning of fuchsias is to understand a bit about their growth habits. Fuchsias produce flowers only at the tip of new growth. Your mission is to maximize the number of new growth tips.

Your fuchsia isn’t likely to produce flowers along the long straggly branches that it now has, so you must dramatically shorten the stragglers to force new growth closer to the center of the plant.

Do this by cutting all hanging branches back to the edge of the basket and shortening to 6 to 8 inches any branches that grow upright from the plant’s center.

If pruned properly, your fuchsia basket will contain a rounded cluster of bare branches. You may worry that you have ruined the plant permanently. Don’t.

Make sure the soil is moist, but not soggy, and feed the fuchsia lightly with a well-balanced fertilizer such as 14-14-14. In a week or so, new growth tips will begin to appear on the bare branches.

Throughout the rest of the winter and into the spring, whenever new growth has three pairs of leaves, pinch out the top pair to force two new growing tips where there had only been one. Each time you pinch off a branch end, you double the number of growing tips. Continue feeding.

By May, your fuchsia should be full, bushy and flowering.

--Written by University of California Certified Master Gardener Mary C. Steele of Laguna Niguel

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