Fuchsias - easy to love!

Creating your basket

You do not need a basket any larger than fourteen inches across. If it is the traditional wire basket there are many ways of lining it: moss, polythene of a suitable colour, manufactured liners of various sorts, and several layers of newspaper will last the season. Place liner in the basket and fill with compost and firm it down until you are satisfied that your liner takes the form of the basket. Remove the compost to the depth of the pots that your plants are growing in. Remove your plants from the pots and place these pots in the basket. Refill the basket around them with compost andtamp it down lightly.

Now gently twist the pots out of the compost and place the fuchsias in the holes. Continue until basket is completely filled.

If you have used polythene as a liner or any other non-porous material you will need to make some drainage holes. View the bottom of the basket as a saucer and make small holes around the edge of the imaginary saucer. If you were to make a hole dead centre when watering the water would find it’s way straight down through without wetting the whole basket. Give the plants a watering to settle them in and hang the basket for a few days, out of direct sunlight. Baskets may need watering two or three times a day but that depends on a lot of different factors. They are better not being hung on the south side of the house and it may be preferred to hang them on the north side as then they only catch the early and late direct sunlight. "Swel Gel" can be added to the compost but make the crystals wet first before adding it to the compost.

Once the basket has got going treat it as one plant, pinching it out if required and turning it a quarter turn twice a week to maintain a good shape.

To list the basket varieties would be endless but these are often used these with great success: Swingtime, R.A.F. Tosca, Brutus, Li Kai Lin, President Margaret Slater, Orange Mirage, Jack Shahan and Machu Pichu. Bear in mind that if you are growing for a contest or flower show you may be limited to certain types by the rules.

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