transplanted a fuchsia and its now gone crispy

[Ciri]

I have had to move a large fuchsia which would otherwise have been bulldozed due to building work. Obviously appreciate its not a great time of year to be moving large shrubs.

I put it in the pond for a very very long drink and then replanted it with a good load of compost and watered well. Ive then watered it loads morning and evening. It has now gone crispy with almost every leaf shrivelled up. I don't understand how it can be thirsty and sure if I'd drowned it, it would be limp rather than crispy.

Am I just massively underestimating the amount of water it needs and can I perk it up once it's dried up. The leaves are still green, just shrivelled and dry.

It will regrow from the base probably. Cut it back where it has died off to shortish stems, keep it watered. Give it a couple of weeks for the roots to settle and it will start to grow new shoots1

They’re pretty tough, it’s probably concentrating its strength on root repair & will sulk a bit but then re sprout

Ok i'll leave it where it is for now and keep watering regularly. It's most definitely having a major strop rather than a little sulk!

My well established fuchsia had survived years of hard pruning until two years ago when it did not regrow new shoots in the Spring. All I had was a weedy looking stem which died within a couple of weeks. I left it the following year to see what happened but last summer it still looked dead so bought a lovely eucalyptus bush to replace it. Blow me, this year there are loads of new stems and it’s looking very healthy again!

They really are very tough so if you prune yours back, with a bit of look it should grow again next year.

Yeah you might end up having to give it a good cut back but it should come back in the end. It’s good to cut them back before moving sometimes so they have less work to do after the event, parts that are too far away for the roots to service can die off but with fuchsias they’re pretty bouncy. Fingers crossed!