Fabulous Fuchsias For The Rock Garden

Among the most spectacular summer flowers, Fuchsias are outstanding garden plants with their continuous display of ravishing, dancing blossoms, dangling in clusters like prize jewels. Often blooming from late spring until the first frosts, they are available in a wide range of colors, from luscious pinks and purples to whites and even peach. Attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds, Fuchsias require little care and their various growing habits, from trailing and cascading to upright and bushy, make them the champions of hanging baskets, window boxes and containers. They are also wonderful in summer-bedding schemes, as flowering hedges or in permanent plantings.

There are thousands of cultivars and about 110 species found in the wild in Central and South America. Among them, the smaller hardy or half-hardy Fuchsias are great candidates for the rock garden.

The best Fuchsias for such planting are the low-growing Fuchsias with outward facing flowers. Unlike the traditional Fuchsias whose flowers hang gracefully from the leaf axils, these Fushias have semi-erect to erect blossoms, holding them horizontally or upward, so that you look down from above into their corolla.

They will enjoy the good drainage conditions of the rockery and contrast beautifully with the green foliage of the ferns or small conifers.

The hardy Fuchsia varieties you will select can be used as a permanent planting. Here is a list of pretty Fuchsias for your rock garden.