Oregon Fuchsia Garden
Elsie Sydnor, Editor
On our vacation we stopped overnight to visit with Leon and Hazel Hubbard in Salem, Oregon. They both are doing well, but they do not travel far from home these days. They wanted me to be sure to tell all their friends that they will be thinking of everyone enjoying the Convention, and they send their best wishes to everyone. If anyone goes through Salem, they would love to have you stop for a visit.
Their garden is lovely and bright with flowers. They have branched out with columbines, lilies, hollyhocks, dahlias and roses, but fuchsias are still there, happily growing in the ground with everything else. Leon has long said that more fuchsias should be allowed to spread their wings and grow as shrubs in the garden.
We visited the fuchsia garden at the State Capitol where a large number of fuchsias are in the ground, several for quite a number of years. Salem Area Branch took on this project in 1989 with Leon acting as chairman and chief gardener. He spent so much time there the Capitol grounds gardeners got to know him well and were instrumental in having the garden named in Leon’s honor in 1997.
The plot of land where the fuchsias grow has some shade from big century-old trees. Where the shade is the heaviest, the fuchsias are smaller and less floriferous. When a couple large limbs were cut from the trees, many fuchsias improved with more light.
The first planting numbered over 200 fuchsias, planted in groups of the same cultivar, taller ones toward the back or center of the beds, with shorter varieties in front. ‘Papoose’, ‘Cardinal’, ‘Rufus’, ‘Mephisto’, F. magellanica, (plus the variegated and alba varieties) were some of the original choices and they are still present today. Other long-lasting (five years or more) plants are ‘Oriental Lace’, ‘David’ ‘Mrs. Popple’, ‘Corallina’, ‘Miss California’, ‘Chickadee’, ‘Machu Picchu’ and ‘Golden Gate’. They planted some large double varieties, but they do not do as well. Single varieties and the species do the best.
Salem is not a cool coastal city. Its mean summer temperature is 79°. The day we were there was closer to 90° and we have been there when it was 105°. Humidity comes from ocean (fifty miles away) breezes in the late afternoons and evenings. Rainfall measures forty inches a year, with only three inches of that between May and September. Their wettest months are November through January. Winter temperatures seldom get below 20° and when it does, it lasts just two or three days. They do get snow, but that does not last long either. Of course there is always the possibility of a more severe storm. Fuchsias are less dependent on humans when they are grown in the ground.
Salem Area Branch members have a clean-up day in the spring when they clear away debris and winter mulch and apply time-release fertilizer. After the first frost, they come in to cover the base of the plants with bark dust mulch. As the weather warms the fuchsias have to start growing from rootstock. A few plants need to be replaced each year. Leon estimates that about 15% of the original plants are still there.
An automatic watering system takes care of them during the dry summer. Individual members will occasionally check on the plants. Of course, when we were there, the whole time he was showing us around, Leon was dead heading and pulling stray weeds!
Sometimes in late summer there is damage from the two-spotted spider mites and in the cool spring they sometimes have rust, but the plants are not sprayed. It is amazing how independent the fuchsias are in such a setting. Leon is surprised they are not used more for landscape garden plants. They certainly have proved their worth here.
No one in the Branch loves the garden as much as Leon does and that worries him and Hazel. What will happen to it when they can no longer look after it? It is a lovely gift to the Oregon citizens and visitors alike.
Other articles about the garden can be found in past AFS Bulletins: September/October 1992, Page 16; May/June 1994, page 15; September/October 1997, page 4.