• Stopping is the term used for the removal of the small growing tips from each branch. It is also referred to as pinching out. The purpose is to encourage further lateral growth, the development of side shoots, to control the shape and subsequent flowering of the plant.
  
• The first stop is made when a plant has developed 3 or 4 pairs of leaves. The centre growing tip is then removed. This encourages the side shoots that grow in the leaf axils left on the plant to grow outwards. When they have in turn made one to four pairs of leaves, the second stop is made by pinching out those growing tips. The process of stopping can be repeated several times and will make the plant increase tremendously in size.
  
• As a general guide you have to allow about a month after each stop for the subsequent shoots to have developed sufficiently, growing two or three pairs of leaf joints, to be stopped again.
  
• Every time a plant is stopped it will delay flowering by about 9 weeks for single cultivars, 10 weeks for semi-doubles and 11-12 weeks for doubles, in my experience.
  
• All stops must be made in one go, at the same time, to ensure evenly balanced growth.
  
• To achieve a nice shape from the onset - good width but height kept down - make the second stop at two or three pairs of leaves for the bottom two branches, at two pairs for the next branch up and at one pair for the top one.
  
• Be flexible, don't rigorously stop at every one, two or three pairs, whatever you decided on, but keep an eye on the shape and always stop for shape.
  
• Try and stop your plants as soon as the growing tips are large enough to handle (on a turgid plant you just bend them back and they snap off nicely), there is not much point in wasting the plants energy by letting it grow several pairs of leaves that you are only going to remove.
  
• When buds show at one shoot, all other shoots will also show buds within the next 7 to 10 days. If you are stopping a plant when buds are already clearly visible stopping times can be reduced by around ten days.
  
• Make sure you time your penultimate stop (the one before the last one) correctly. If this is not done at the right time, the growing tips will not have made sufficient growth for you to make your final stop on the intended date.
  
• Work your way backwards from the Show date when calculating your stopping times, and allow a little extra time between the penultimate and the last stop, in case excessively hot weather slows downs growth.   CD
  

On behalf of the Show Sub Committee, I would like to thank everyone who took the time and trouble to respond to our appeal to establish which cultivars were Hardy in various parts of the country.
The response was not as good as had been hoped for, but those that did respond provided some much needed information.
We would like to extend our plea again to all growers. Please let us know what cutltivars have survived in the garden over the last 5 consecutive winters, coming back into growth and flowering before the end of July Please send your findings to Arthur Phillips, 39 Highfields, Bromsgrove, Worcs, B61 7DA.
The present survey revealed that the following cultivars have been identified as being grown successfully in the garden in various parts of the country over the last five years, meeting the critieria of coming back into growth and flowering before the end of June each year. They are: Annabel, Beacon Rosa, Barbara, Celia Smedley, Diana Wright, Foxgrove Wood, Heidi Ann, Plenty, Scarcity and Logans Wood.
The Show Sub Committee will be recommending to the main B.F.S. Committee that these cultivars are added to the current Hardy list (for show purposes). Arthur Phillips - B.F.S. CAD's Fuchsia News/ BFS Spring Bulletin 2001