Fuchsias still hanging out there

 Named after one of the great figures of German botany, Leonhart Fuchs (1501-66), there's nothing foxy with the delicate flowers of Fuchsia magellanica var. alba... A favorite in the Victorian England, they look gracefully elegant their shell-pink tutus.

Hardy fuchsias are still blooming with undiminished vigor. Like small lanterns, their flowers hang from  elegantly arching canes, lighting up half-shady parts of the gardens. In this mild climate, many Fuchsia species form large shrubs that feed whole families of hummingbirds throughout their long flowering season from July until the first frosts nip them off in November.
*
Hailing from Central and South America (and with a couple of cousins in New Zealand), they look decidedly exotic in the evergreen Pacific Northwest gardens. I don't mind this, even if as a garden plant, I prefer the slimmer species, like the many F. magellanica varieties (the big, colorful cultivars I think look best planted in pots and containers at these latitudes). Their only drawback is that their buds are all too skinny to be popped, which is not a trivial matter, as popping them (secretly) certainly belongs to the joys of childhood that stay forever in one's memory...

Dark, cherry-red berries of Fuchsia magellanica, with color-matching stems.