Cardinal

'Cardinal' is my shining example of what you can grow from just a cuttings in about a year!! I have written about this fuchsia here before. But back then, I knew him as the amazing Larry. In April of 2008 I was searching for Jerusalem Artichokes. I found someone selling them on CrarigsList and was given directions to drive way out into the foothills southeast of Aptos and Corralitos. I was literally told to take the first dirt road to the right after going over an little old bridge. When I got to that dirt road, I saw weeds almost as tall as the group of men I saw standing in them. Just as I was deciding this could be a mistake, Larry and his wife came walking out of the weeds and led me back to a nice little garden. As Larry was filling my order for Jerusalem Artichoke tubers, I looked around and was amazed to see this huge red fuchsia bush next to their trailer. I asked for a cutting and he was happy to let me take a large one. Other than the Fuchsia magellanicas, I have never seen a fuchsia bush grow so fast AND bloom the entire time! Yes, there are ones that will get much bigger, but they don't have large blossoms and they usually don't bloom until they are large established bushes or trees.

So 'Cardinal' get two photos! The second one is a recent one. Bear in mind that I cut this one evey couple of weeks for propagation and it is in a container, otherwise it would probably be at least twice this size by now.