Grow and Care for Cape Fuchsia

Grow cape fuchsia in bright sun with moist, rich soil and afternoon shade in heat. Tags may also say Phygelius. It is not a hanging-basket fuchsia.

Give it bright sun, moist rich soil, and afternoon shade in heat

Cape fuchsia is a South African figwort. Give it bright light and soil that stays moist, with a break from the hottest afternoon sun. [1] The plant often fails in hot, sticky Deep South summers.

Trumpets run from late spring into fall if the ground stays moist. In July and August bloom stalls unless you water and feed. [2]

Tags sometimes call it drought tolerant. In Southeast heat it does better in the same moisture as hosta and fern than baking beside sage. [3]

Pair it with other moist-sun hummingbird plants

Partners should want the same bright site and even moisture: other summer nectar plants at a sunny woodland edge, not a gravel drought bed. Leave a path so you can deadhead and pull suckers without trampling neighbours.

Plant at pot depth after frost

Plant nursery starts after frost in spring, with enough weeks for roots to take before winter. Set the crown at the same depth it grew in the pot.

1. Pick bright sun with afternoon shade where summers cook, and ground that stays moist but drains after rain.
2. Dig a hole as deep as the pot and a little wider. Do not bury the crown in a compost collar.
3. Set the plant at pot depth, backfill with the soil you dug, and water to settle.
4. Mulch the root zone and keep mulch off the stems.
5. Water through the first summer, especially July and August, so the trumpets do not stall.

Grow it in a pot that drains and stays moist

A pot works if it has drainage holes and a mix that stays evenly moist without sitting in a saucer of water. Empty the saucer after rain. Afternoon shade in heat still applies. Ground is easier than a small bowl that dries one day and sits wet the next.

Replant a sucker, or take a tip cutting

The easiest new plant is a rooted sucker. Tip cuttings in midsummer also root if you keep them shaded and moist.

1. Dig a rooted sucker, keeping some soil on the roots, and replant it at the same depth.
2. Or snip a tip cutting in midsummer, stick it in a draining mix, and keep it shaded and evenly moist until it roots.
3. Water the new plant through its first summer the same way you water the parent.

Deadhead spent trumpets, and pull suckers you don't want

Spent panicles left on the plant end the show early. Suckers left alone turn a clump into a thicket.

1. Through summer, snip spent flower panicles so new stalks keep coming into fall.
2. Pull or dig suckers you do not want. Low stems may root where they touch the soil — lift those too.
3. In colder winters, leave the old stems until mid-spring. They help shelter the crown. Then cut the plant back by about half, or harder if you want a smaller plant.
4. Where winters stay mild and the plant stays leafy, still deadhead and still pull extra suckers. Do not wait for a full dieback that may not come.

Not a hanging-basket fuchsia — and not California fuchsia

Cape fuchsia is a figwort, closer to foxglove, snapdragon, and penstemon. Hanging-basket fuchsia is a different genus with different shade, moisture, and winter care. [4]

California fuchsia is Epilobium, a dry-sun western native that wants sharp drainage. Do not copy that recipe onto this moist South African plant, and do not copy hanging-basket fuchsia culture either.

African Queen, or the genus face

Culture is the same. Flower color is the choice. Do not treat a shop list of twenty names as a different plant.

‘African Queen’ is the salmon-orange hybrid with yellow throats that most gardeners plant for hummingbirds. Cape fuchsia is the genus face — dark green opposite leaves and dangling trumpets in the orange-red range, sometimes tagged cape figwort.

Set it in bright sun with afternoon shade in heat, keep the soil moist, plant after frost, deadhead through summer, pull extra suckers, and read the tag so you did not buy hanging-basket fuchsia.