How do I kill a fuschia bush in an environmentally friendly way?

[BrandyandGinger]

I want to get rid a fuschia bush that's growing by a wall. I won't be able to dig it out but I don't want to use Roundup or anything nasty. Does anyone know any tricks for doing it? I've already pruned it to the ground, but it could be two foot tall again in a week.

I'm in Ireland. There are fuchsias growing in the ditches here. Around me is starting to get overrun with Rhodedendron as well.

Can vouch for 6ft plus fuchsias, as I'm looking at the one in my garden.

Can also vouch for them growing rampantly and over taking everything else.

OP, you have my sympathies.

I'm in South Wales... if that makes a difference to height

I have a couple of rampant fuchsias in my front garden too. I'm also in Ireland. I don't particularly want them to leave but they both impinge on my turning circle if left alone so they get cut back very hard frequently which makes them less leggy. I agree with the others, just keep cutting the shoots as they appear and eventually it'll die, you might need to do that weekly at this time of year. If you wanted to have a better behaved fuchsia there is a fuchsia nursery in Gorey that sells an amazing range and give the height, width and growth habit of each variety. https://irishfuchsia.ie/shop/ I love fuchsias because of the bees, sometimes the bush by my front door sounds like a low powered engine because it's so full of bees.

I'm not sure that you can guarantee that your roses will always be so abundant. My rose bush went absolutely nuts last year and had far more flowers and for far longer than it ever had before so it might have just been that the weather conditions were particularly good.

(I'm from a horticultural family and have always been able to spell fuchsia correctly, except when I'm very tired and have to think hard about it. <smug> )

I love fuchsias because of the bees, sometimes the bush by my front door sounds like a low powered engine because it's so full of bees. They're also an alternative host plant for the caterpillar of the Elephant Hawk Moth.

The difference is that in the very western parts of the UK, most affected by the Gulf Stream, they don't get knocked back in the winter.

I didn't know that about the moth. Thank you!

And yes, my fuchsia is usually humming with bees. Wasn't last year though 😥

Good overview here. I seem to attack everythin with my adze. Which is a good scrabble word. But supposedly I should be hacking with an axe. https://www.wonkeedonkeetools.co.uk/mattocks/what-are-different-mattock-heads-used-for

Just keep cutting it back, save the energy. Though it sounds happy.

What a horrible thread.

Just offer it up on freegle or a gardening group loads of people like to rescue plants

That seems an extreme reaction. OP is trying to get rid of a large and vigorous plant that is abundant in the wild where she lives. Or is it some other aspect of the thread you were talking about?

Maybe my incorrect spelling of fuchsia?

My garden really is very bee friendly. I have lots of sedum and heather growing on an awkward slope. I have a laurel hedge at the front of the house but the other three sides are native plants in a very natural hedge. I have aquilegia and marigolds self seeding around the place. I have two compost bins.

I'm planning on having a few rose bushes in front of a wall, maybe with some lady's mantle around them. It won't be artificial grass or concrete.

Oh yeah, these gardening threads are BRUTAL. It's all death and dismemberment.

I looked up the tool I use for digging roots and it is indeed a mattock. I always thought it was a pick or a pickaxe.

I've got a big fuchsia in my garden not 6' tall but still pretty big. I cut it back to the ground every winter and every April it grows back. I think it might be hard work to kill, its been there more than 20 years. Fortunately its always covered in flowers so it can stay

Try the copper nail and then use washing powder or borax and boiling water on it repeatedly. It can only try regrowing for so long before it gives up.

Honestly I don’t see what’s actually going to happen by using roundup sensibly. It’s systemic. Use gel or spray in a plastic bag (use biodegrade doggy bags if you want to be ultra eco) so it’s not spreading everywhere.

What harms that doing honestly?! It becomes inactive once dry.

Don’t! We all knew what you meant.

Tap some copper nails into tte stump.

I've been told that works.

Obviously body buried under, acting as super fertilizer. 😁

Does it have to die? Could you prune it back severely, to much smaller size?

I’ve got pesky fuchsias in my garden in SW Scotland. Bit of a menace - spreading roots get in and around everything. They pop up everywhere. They flower pretty late.

As a balance to the 'horrible thread' posts, I was rereading this again this morning and thought what a lovely thread about plants, gardens, nature, buzzing bees, hawkmoths, tools and words.

Everyone spells fushia (sic) their own way but everyone knows what they mean. The one that always got me at college was Zantedeschia aethiopica....and don't even get me started on the latin name for ferns and grasses.

Now back to the horrible - research has found that Round Up is linked to increased risk of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

I know some people were worried that I was an environmental thug for killing a fuchsia. Here is a photo of some beautiful trees in the unmown part of my garden to prove that I don't hate nature.

The chopped up fuchsia is out of sight at the back of the wild bit, being a shelter for wildlife.