I thought it might be of some help to our less experienced members to start up a kind of 'fuchsia question time' section.
One way of, hopefully, getting you, our dear members, a little more involved in the publication.  The simple task for you is, to pose the queries, and I, with the help of my fellow committee members and/or experienced growers within our friendly fuchsia folk entourage will come up with the answer for you!
Sound like a good deal to me, so have a go, just jot your question down and pass it on to me or any other committee member at one of our monthly meetings and we will do the rest.

To start the ball rolling a couple of queries on a seasonal topic, overwintering, which, by the way, is the subject I get asked about more than anything else, and is therefore covered in detail on page 30-34.

Question: Can I leave my standard hardy fuchsia outdoors during the winter months?
Answer: NO, if you want the fuchsia to survive as a standard!
With it being a hardy variety the root system might well survive and, like any other hardy fuchsia planted out in the border, throw up new shoots from below the soil surface and form a fine flowering plant again the following season. However, the head of the plant, which undoubtedly has taken quite some time and effort to grow, and the stem will be cut down by the frost in most of our normal winters. Though you might get lucky if we have a very mild one. So, the advice really must be dig it up, pot it and store it in a frost free place to overwinter.
The same naturally applies to all hardy fuchsias in pots. The thin pots just will not provide enough protection, so they need to be moved in or extremely well wrapped with bubbly plastic or other insulation material.

Question: I like to tidy up my garden in the autumn. Can I prune my hardy fuchsias now?
Answer: You can, if you wish, reduce the longest overhanging branches by about a third, but the hardy fuchsias, which flower on current year's growth, should be treated like budleias, hard pruning to be delayed until late spring. If the stems were to be cut back hard now, you would find that, as they are hollow, rain water would collect in them then freeze, expanding and bursting the stemjust like a water pipe. The old twiggy growth does actually provide some added frost protection. Depending on how exposed your garden is, they will still be in full flower, as they are in my garden as I write this, and many a year some very still colourful just before Christmas!

As a Radio Amateur in the Cambridge & District Fuchsia Society I have discovered another in the Colchester & District Fuchsia Society. I mad contact with Dick and we now have weekly chats on the radio. Obviously we have got more in common than fuchsia growing so we have plenty to talk about. We are sure there must be others 'out there' and we would like to form a 'radio net' for discussing fuchsia matters and subjects.
Dick and I arranged to meet at the Felixstowe Fuchsia Festival 2001 in August so we were able to put a face to the voice.
This letter will hopefully appear in as many Fuchsia Society Newsletter as I can find e-mail addresses for. So if you are a 'fuchsia growing radio amateur' or you know of one in another club, please let me or him know!
Curently we are using 3.6850Mhz +- QRM at 2000 hours local time (1900 GMT) on Tuesdays.