hardy fuchsia

Photo: Unknown — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 6 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Fuchsia berries edible — mild-sweet to bland; flowers edible. Edible berries and flowers.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Flower, Fruit

Ripens

Late summer–autumn

Mature size

Subshrub 1–2 m; good in containers

Light

Partial to full sun; afternoon shade in heat

Soil pH

5.5–7.0

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Southern Chile and Argentina, from about 35°S to Tierra del Fuego — wet forest margins and streamsides in the far south, which is exactly where the hardiness comes from. Naturalised in Ireland, western Britain and New Zealand.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

1–2 yrs

Growth speed

Fast — a metre or more in a season, and it regrows from the base after a hard winter

Spacing

90 cm (35 in) apart — about 1.2 per m² (1.1 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

Opposite or in whorls of three, ovate 2–5 cm, thin and finely toothed, on slender arching stems that are usually red.

Root system

Shallow and fibrous from a woody crown, and that crown is the point: in a cold garden the top is frosted off and the plant behaves as a herbaceous perennial, reshooting from the base in late spring. Mulch the crown rather than mourning the stems.

Fruit description

A glossy purple-black oblong berry 1.5–2.5 cm following the flowers, ripening late summer into autumn. Edible and mild — sweetish and slightly peppery, the texture somewhere between a grape and a fig — though quality varies a lot from plant to plant, some pleasant and some watery. The flowers are edible too.

Propagation

Softwood cuttings root almost too easily; a shoot left in a glass of water will do it. Layering and seed both work.

Pollination

Self-fertile

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.