Spider wrote:
If you try a fuchsia next year, consider planting F. 'Mrs Popple'. It is a
hardy one with good crimson and purple flowers, and it is readily available
in summer.

I'm incredibly fussy about my fuchsias. I've only found one hardy one
that I like - I believe the flouncier the flower the less hardy it is,
in general, and I hate the tiny plain little flowers, so it's non-hardy
only for me, I'm afraid.

I had one unflouncy one that was part of the massacre of last year,
which was called Star Wars. Nice colours, but very dull shaped flowers
- but the plant was absolutely heaving with them. I had another in the
same colours but flouncier blooms, but only a handful of them actually
came to full flower.

The main problem this year is that I kept "giving them a bit longer" to
wake up, before accepting they were dead, so I didn't go out and buy
another bunch of them, so I only had a couple last year. Which have
since been scratched out by the chickens!