Hydrangeas, fuchsias and camellias

[HesterShaw]

Hello Mumsnet gardeners, this is my first gardening post and I know bugger all. I moved into a house in February with many of the plants mentioned in the title. It's a very old person's garden, and the chap who lived here before liked his shrubs. A LOT. I have inherited many of them, but the problem is I haven't a clue what to do with them. Gardening sites tell me things I don't understand.

All I need to know for the moment is, what do I do with hydrangeas, fuchsias and camellias to make sure the come back nicely in the spring. The fuchsias in particular are looking very sorry for themselves - kind of straggly and diseased. I've already dug up one as it looked like it was beyond help. I work flat out in the summer so don't have loads of time to garden.

We're in West Cornwall so it's usually mild, though very wet and windy most of the time.

Thanks very much for any advice :)

The camellia will already have produced the buds for next year's flowers (if you look you will see fairly fat green buds) and if you prune it now, then you won't have flowers next year.

If the fuchsias are pretty large, then you could maybe cut out any too-big bits, and leave the rest till spring. Same goes for the hydrangeas as the old stems will protect the bases from frost. If you prune them too much now and there is a hard winter, you might lose them.

Thank you taxi. I'm to leave them til the spring then? Not that we ever really get frost. I imagine the reason they look so awful is because no one has attended to them for the last two years or so.

It is quite mild though and if you thik the plants are sick (as opposed to loosing leaves in the autumn) it could be worth it cutting back say a third into the plants this weekend and into a nice shape while the frosts still havent hit and the plants have a chance to recover before winter and may save any disease getting hold of the rest of the plants.
If you think the fushias are post it you could probably still take very successful cuttings.
However be careful and dip the shears into mild bleach solution between plants to stop any infection spreading, and don't cut into any dead wood.
As taxi said, dont prune the camellias, just put a layer of nice compost in the soil around their roots.
Prune and feed the hydrangeas in the spring.

I don't know if they're sick. The fuchsia leaves look kind of all curled and scrunched up. They weren't like this at the start of the spring when they came out. I thought maybe it was a thing that fuchsias do?

The other idea I had was to create a wild flower bed for the bees and butterflies, but maybe that's a whole other thread :)

curling leaves sounds like some mite: whats under the leaves?
yy to bees and butterflies!

I was just speaking to a neighbour. She reckons just hack it back now. It's so mild here.

A mite you say? I'll go and have another look. Yes the leaves were kind of curling up and crumbling away when I squidged them between my fingers.