Fuchsia Black Princess

The Fuchsia Black Princess is a hardy bush fuchsia, with beautiful red and violet flowers. This plant forms a true small bush with an upright habit, which is covered with numerous single bell-shaped flowers until late in the season. A traditional fuchsia, whose robustness has been proven, with flowers that are quite dark, yet still vibrant. In summer, it brightens up a pot or a slightly shaded area of the garden.

Hybrid Fuchsias are countless, and mostly derived from Fuchsia magellanica and Fuchsia fulgens, sometimes with the contribution of Fuchsia triphylla, which adds length to the flowers. All these herbaceous to woody plants, more or less hardy and more or less erect or trailing, belong to the Onagraceae family. They originate from South America, the Caribbean, and Australia.

The Fuchsia Black Princess quickly forms a dense bush with upright and branching stems, reaching a height of 70-80 cm. In favorable climates, if its branches are not frozen by winter, it can even reach a height of 1.20 m (3 ft 11 in). The stems, initially herbaceous, become woody over the course of the season. They bear abundant foliage, of a rather dark green color, composed of leaves arranged in groups of 3 or 5, lanceolate, and rather narrow. These deciduous leaves fall in autumn and reappear in spring. Flowering occurs from June to September-October, sometimes until November if the weather remains mild. Its flowers are quite large. Each one has a calyx, a sort of long tube extended by 4 long and upturned sepals, surrounding a double to semi-double corolla composed of wide and short petals. The calyx is red while the corolla is a dark purple to violet. Long cherry-red stamens complete the harmony of colors.

This Fuchsia Black Princess is a perennial bush that can be grown in the ground in many regions. Its hardiness is around -12°C (10.4 °F), and it is sometimes reported as resistant down to -15°C. It is necessary to protect the stump in winter. Fuchsias go well with hydrangeas and the foliage of ferns, rodgersias, orange-colored heucheras, or hostas. In a flowering pot, they can be accompanied, for example, by ivy, lobelias, or begonias.

Discovered in Santo Domingo in the 17th century and acclimatized in Europe, it was named Fuchsia (not Fuschia) in honor of a German botanist named Fuchs. Native to South America, botanical Fuchsias have gradually been multiplied. There are now believed to be tens of thousands of hybrids!