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All the fuchsias in this section are distinguished by producing two types of flowers on each plant, the male or staminate form with perfect blooms, and the female or pistillate form, smaller and without stamens. (The word encliandra actually means 'with bent stamens').
Their natural habitat is Central America, the mountain ranges from Mexico right through to Panama, where they flourish in temperate or even cool temperate forests some 4,500 to 10.500 ft above sea level.
The encliandras are usually considered hardy and you might like to try out this one, WALDFEE, in your hardy border as I did. Though described in Leo Boullemier's Checklist as hardy only in mild areas, it is in my opinion much tougher than given credit for and with its fine serrated foliage and minute flowers in great abundance it makes such a perfect foil for the bolder, brassier hybrids we usually tend to cultivate in our gardens.
Pruned back to ground level late Spring each year, it produces a superb, shapely 3-5ft high bush of equal spread with gracefully, arching branches, year after year in a quite shady bed at the north side of our house.
Whilst the first severe frost, late October this year, damaged just about all the blooms on the other hardies in the bed, the Waldfees had only slight foliage damage, but the shiny cerise-pink blooms are totally unmarked and as a nice bonus will later this autumn turn into small shiny black berries.
An easy grower, requiring little attention, recommended for the beginner!
Waldfee is German for 'wood fairy', no doubt in reference to its natural growing habitat, but it is actually a British cultivar, a hybrid of F. michoacanensis, raised in the vicinity of Preston by the well-know hybridist and fuchsia enthusiast, the late James Travis, who carried out much research into this, his favourite section. It was registered in 1973. CD 1998
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