Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Autumnale...a pleasant surprise

I went over to visit a neighbor here in West Virginia where we live that had asked me early in the Spring to help her with some planters for a party she was having. I always try to take advantage of these opportunities to "trial" plants that maybe we are less familiar with or that I need a better photo of. I was back over again to visit our nice neighbor again and was blown away by the Fuchsia 'Autumnale'. This selection of F. austromantaina does produce flowers in areas with longer growing seasons and is somewhat of a perennial in Zone 7b in more temperate areas but it is really underused as an annual for mixed containers. The picture here speaks volumes about the beauty of this plant.
Autumnale is really a prostrate grower that seems to change color with every changing month of the summer and fall. Spectacular!
Try it and you will have customers and neighbors coming back for it year after year.