I read an interesting article in the Garden News sometime last spring, in which Geoff Amos, quite rightly, pointed out that it was rather disappointing that so many people are put off growing sweet peas as ordinary garden flowers by all the detailed information they read about how they should grow them for exhibition. Like sowing them in October and keeping them in a cold frame all winter, or sowing in a heated greenhouse in January, and, the almost daily attention they need after planting out to grow them up single 8ft canes by the cordon system.
Yet a jolly good show of sweet peas can be produced, he says, in a small space, with very little trouble, by doing nothing more than forking some fertiliser into a square yard of ground, putting up a wigwam of canes and pushing the seeds straight into the ground about 2.5cm (1") deep at the foot of these.
End of April/beginning of May is a good time to do it. So simple really, no garden need to be without the magnificent colour and gorgeous scent of these lovely flowers. (Perhaps oversimplified though, as some organic matter added to the soil might be needed too, as peas need moisture retaining soil!)
It prompted me to remind you that growing fuchsias can be simple too.
Especially the beginners amongst us must, at times, by somewhat baffled by the numerous tasks the speakers invariably urge us to see to in order to grow fine exhibition plants. The rigmarole of taking your own cuttings (and often so tiny) preferably with bottom heat in propagators, growing them on in heated greenhouses, potting them on several times into only slightly larger pots, turning them meticulously, having a regular spraying programme to keep pest & diseases at bay, pinching the growing tips out at set times etc. etc. and, with the biennial system not even letting them flower till the second year!
Well, it doesn't need to be complicated like this at all, for you to enjoy fuchsias. Satisfying though it is the see your own plants on the show bench (and you really should have a go to with a few plants to get a taste of that), growing fuchsias can just as easily be enjoyed at a very different level, the easy-peasy way, by growing them in your garden, where after planting out they'll require very little after-care, yet will reward you with a super display of colour lasting well into the autumn, and in the case of hardy fuchsias will do so year after year.
You can treat fuchsias as any other bedding, planting them out after all danger of frost has gone, preferably as reasonably sized plants, ex 90mm pots at the very least, not tiny unstopped cuttings, to give the plant a fair chance.
If intended as a permanent feature with hardy fuchsias, either amongst other shrubs and herbaceous plants in your border or a few of them in a hardy bed together, naturally it makes sense to go to a little extra trouble as you would do with any other long-lasting shrub you plant. That is after all what the hardy fuchsia is, a garden shrub, and one that has, with the potentilla, just about the longest flowering season of them all.
In Spring prepare the soil well, by digging/forking it over and incorporating some organic matter (manure, garden compost) to improve soil-structure, some bonemeal as a long-lasting fertiliser and if the soil is somewhat soggy some grit to aid drainage. I am a great believer in preparing a whole area, not just a tiny planting hole. Rain can than be absorbed over the whole area, and not collect at the foot of the just planted shrub, that planting hole acting as a sump.
After all danger of frost has indeed gone, with is here in Scarborough usually at the beginning of June, you can go ahead and plant up your bed. Make your planting holes, taking care to allow sufficient spacing between the plants, they will if not this first year, certainly in subsequently years take on quite a spread. In the first year you can add other bedding plants to fill gaps, and a variety of bulbs too can be useful to interplant with the hardy fuchsias to provide interest in late winter/early spring when the fuchsias are dormant.
If the soil is dry I fill up the holes with water several times (boring, oh so boring, but it works) to make sure there is moisture below, then plant out, rather deeply, putting several leaf-joints below soil level to ensure extra shoots in future years. If you are scared of burying your fuchsias too deeply, you can leave a sort of saucer-shaped depression round it and fill it in later in the season. I don't water again (so much to do, so little time!), thus forcing the roots to go down deep for the moisture there; our soil is a good water retaining medium loam though.
Should your soil be light and dry you might have to resort to watering during the first summer, but I find roots turn to the surface where the water is applied and subsequently really suffer if watering is then omitted (when you get bored with it!). Besides in hardy beds the deep rooted plants are subsequently better protected against frosts which don't usually penetrate more than a couple of inches.
The most critical period for the hardy fuchsias is coming through the very first winter. We have already encouraged the roots to delve deeply into the soil to aid survival and it might be a good idea too to give the newly planted fuchsias some assistant at the onset of winter by providing a deep mulch around the stems and crown to provide additional insulation for the root system to prevent the potential killer frosts penetrating - you can use peat, garden compost, chipped bark, spent mushroom compost or the old compost from growing bags and patio pots.

You might like to know which varieties have certainly liked it in our Scarborough garden, some surviving happily, thriving in fact, from when I planted up our very first beds about ten years ago.
Army Nurse Deep carmine & bluish violet (SD 2-3ft)
Opens up bright blue, the colouring so much stronger when grown outdoors
Magellanica Alba Very Pale lilac (S 4-6ft)
Perhaps the hardiest of them all, with top growth surviving most winters.Growth is strong and upright, needs a lot of space!
Rose of Castille White & purple, flushed rose (S 2-3ft)
Good grower with lovely colouring.
Herald Scarlet & deep purple (S 3-4ft)
Strong upright with bold bright blooms.
Corallina Scarlet & rich purple (S 3-4ft)
Not just another red & purple, this one has lovely bronzed foliage.
Dollar Princess Cerise & rich purple (D 2½ft)
Shapes up well, nice medium bush full of striking blooms.
Chillerton Beauty Rose-pink & violet S (2-3ft)
Good grower, shapely flowers freely produced.
Lady Thumb Light carmine & white (SD 1ft)
Dwarf, ideal for rockeries with Tom Thumb and Son of Thumb.
Brutus Cerise & dark purple (S 2-3ft)
A very prolific, early flowerer.
Lena Flesh pink & magenta (SD 1-2ft)
Rather lax and spreading but good reliable performer.
Genii Cerise & rich violet (S 1½-2½ft)
Striking, with golden yellow foliage with reddish stems and vivid dainty flowers, opening up quite mid blue really.
Whiteknights Pearl Pale pink & pink (S 3-4ft)
Flowers like a slightly larger Magallanica Alba, but not quit so vigorous and therefore more suitable for a smaller bed. Still grows easily to 4ft though into a nicely shaped bush.
Magellanica Gracillis Variegata Scarlet & dark purple (S 3-4ft)
Wonderful foliage of silvery green, cream & cerise and growing gracefully arched. Just moved it to my front garden after 10 years in situ at the back and it
survived! Superb.
Mrs. Popple Scarlet & purple (S 2-3 ft)
Old favourite still going strong, so reliable. Strong, upright spreading bush.
Constance Soft Pink & Bluish mauve (D 2½-3½ft)
Lovely full double that has everyone taking a second look!

And…………….
Waldfee Soft lilac pink encliandra (S 3-5ft)
Long arched branches and serrated dainty foliage, such a fine contrast with the
usual coarser hardies.
F. procumbens Upward-looking small and unusual single flowers with greenish yellow tube and green sepals tipped purple with vivid blue pollen. Trailing New Zealand species that survives in our rather shady bed! Does especially well in rockeries.
Yolanda Franck Peachy-pink & Orange (S 2-3ft)
Still going strong after 4 years though not rated as hardy!

For bedding out you can of course use any fuchsias (for the keen exhibitors e.g. the ones that just won't fit into the greenhouse any longer or you had that mishap with and broke a branch off!!). Strong growing uprights tend to do best; trailing varieties are better kept for baskets and hanging pots, (which can of course also be displayed out of doors) to prevent them being soiled.
The Triphyllas make striking dot plants for your bedding schemes. They do really well in sunny positions, liking it hot they just keeps flowering on and on and on.

Final Warnings: please do remember that fuchsias, even those that are classified as hardy, which are planted and left out in containers are highly unlikely to survive winter frosts. The root system needs more protection than a thin pot, so needs to be well insulated with several thicknesses of bubble-wrap e.g. or better still taken into a frost free greenhouse for the winter.
Neither are standards of hardy varieties likely to survive as standards: remember the top growth in the hardy beds is usually killed off by frosts, but the deeply rooted plants survive and sent out fresh growth from well below soil level each year, so the head of a standard can be a casualty, though the plant might well re-emerge as an ordinary bush plant! CD1999