It feels great to be home. For the past week and a half, I was on the road between Maine and Pennsylvania, Boston and Denver. Now, I am back. Feeling jetlagged but it is great to be home with my family in this wonderful Maine summer. This morning, I walked around the garden making a list of things to do and take care of for the gardens here at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. While I was away for a week and a half, many of the plants in the garden took off with the summer warmth. I always have a bit of skepticism when trying a new plant in the gardens, especially en masse. One plant that we used quite a bit of this summer was cape fuchsia or Phygelius x rectus. Cape fuchsia is native to South Africa so of course I was skeptical that it would thrive in a cool, moist, Maine summer. But we have grown these plants before and since this is our year of focusing on pollinators as an overarching theme, I thought that these hummingbird attractors would make a nice addition.
When I left Maine almost a week and a half ago, the Phygelius were starting to flower. When I saw them today, they were starting to look spectacular. They may be somewhat small in stature (18-24″ in height) but the bright red flowers are just what the garden needs. The 2″ nodding, tubular flowers are borne on terminal spikes. Even though they have a common name of “fuchsia,” they are more closely related to foxgloves. The cultivar that we are using en masse is “Devil’s Tears.” This is reportedly the truest red of all cultivars. The best thing about these flowers is that they should continue to flower until frost. For us, that is over 5 months of flowering time!
Grow cape fuchsia in a warm, well-drained spot in full to part-sun. In a mild winter, Phygelius can come back from a winter dormancy here in our USDA zone 6a gardens. This past winter, our climates dipped to -7 degrees Fahrenheit and none of the Phygelius survived. After two wicked winters, we are certainly due for a pleasant, mild winter. I have high hopes that this will be true so that in 2015, our gardens will be covered with huge clumps of this gorgeous plant.
Are you growing cape fuchsia in your garden? If so, which cultivar(s) and are you in awe of it as much as I am this year?
– Rodney
Images: plantify.co.uk, Bradner Gardens Park
I have two hummingbirds that have staked out parts of the garden and I have a cape fuchsia for each…both plants get a lot of love. I am not as found the color red in my garden, but life does seem to be a compromise.