All Fuchsia'd Up

View from mid-porch looking West.

Last evening hubby and I hopped in the car and headed into town. The new fuchsias had just arrived at Freddy's and we wanted to have our pick. As we drove past the firing range, I saw two of the deer along the outside of the fence, and hoped they would not cross the highway after dark. I got a good look at their rumps and they had black tails, making them either Black Tailed Deer or Mule Deer. [There is a controversy on their classification -- they are either a subspecies of the Mule Deer or they are more closely related to the Sitka Deer. Technically it's ok to refer to all of them as Mule Deer.] But, I digress. Back to the Fuchsia Quest.

From the Garden Center we watched a spectacular, although extremely brief sunset, as we inspected rows and rows of newly unpacked fuchsias in 12" hanging baskets. Hard to decide, they were all so beautiful!

We chose five: 2 Curtain Calls, 1 First Love, 1 Dark Eyes, and 1 White Eyes. When we went to load them into the standard jumbo grocery carts, we realized they wouldn't fit too well without possibly breaking a stem here or there. So, we took a large heavy duty flat cart parked near the register in the Garden Center and loaded two fuchsias on it. One of the regular grocery carts also carried two fuchsias, and the second grocery cart carried one, absolutely jumbo-sized plant. We had our own little fuchsia wagon train to the exit where we checked out. A nice tall kid loaded everything for us into the car and whisked all the carts away for us.

The little Scion xB was stuffed with a riot of greenery and flowers. Hubby had to hold the smallest one, and it reached out toward me, across the center console and touched the gearbox. The other four fuchsias were packed carefully in the "cargo" area and flattened back seat. We drove home without incident [no deer on any of the roads.]

We unpacked these hefty pots, snipped off the tags and hung them up immediately. Instant summer! As long as I feed them weekly as suggested, water them frequently and protect them from hot sun and wind damage, they will thrive through September. Ah, now, just to kick back and enjoy their beauty!

Life is good.