Below some useful hints for the last minute preparation and what to do when you arrive at the show to primarily assist our less experienced growers. Experienced exhibitors will be aware of most of these procedures, but I really hope that for those entering the show for the first time it will remove some of the daunting mystique which surrounds fuchsia shows and encourage those still wavering 'to take the plunge'.
We have been fortunate to have a healthy influx of new members over the last couple of years and as a Society we are looking forward to see the efforts of a whole new crop of local exhibitors being rewarded at our Annual Show. It is the renewed enthusiasm of new members coupled with the guiding assistance of the 'old hands' that will ensure the continued well being of our Society. Remember that you'll never know what you can do 'till you've tried.  Have a go, I'll promise you, you really will like the experience, there is nothing like being fully involved and sharing in the satisfying feeling of having played your full part.
To make it a success it is of course necessary that as many members as possible participate, in the end it is your plants that matter, without them we don't have a show. So be brave, take the plunge! Even our champion grower Dave Edmond started off by just tentatively entering a few plants in the beginners classes!
I would like to wish you all every success and hope that even if you do not win, you will enjoy taking part.
I assume you have already done the necessaries of training and stopping your plants with the show in mind and having studied the show schedule carefully that they are indeed in the correct type and size of pot.
Don't wait until the last minute to prepare your plants for the show, much of what needs doing can be done over a period of several days, even weeks.

Two weeks prior to the Show
To improve the freshness and vigour of the foliage, give the plants one full strength feed of Chempak No. 2 (or other high nitrogen feed) and then revert back to your normal water and feed.
10 days prior to the Show
Remove all open flowers. They will be past their best on the day of the show and will drop pollen on the foliage if left on the plant, or, faded and past it, you will have to remove them anyway on the eve of the show when there is already so much else to do! (One year, 1992 I think, those were the days, I thought my full standard of Celia Smedley was flowering far too early - I removed a whole bucketful of blooms just over a week before the show, following this advice from Ken Pilkington, and was rewarded with a superb fresh crop of blooms in peak condition on the day of the show, a red card and…...a Best in Show Award!!)
If you have been growing your plants outside, which they do seem to like best, now is the time to put them back into a greenhouse (and hope and pray we won't get a heatwave!) Make sure there is adequate ventilation, but cover the open windows and doors with netting to prevent bees & wasps entering, their footprints mark flowers quite badly, and should therefor be kept out; damage is especially noticeable on the white and pastel coloured varieties.

One week prior to the Show

• You will have a fair idea which plants will be suitable or ready for the Show date. Double check they are in correct type and size of pot, though it is the plants that are judged not the pot, rules are rules and need to be conformed to, so don't risk being N.A.S.'d.  Don't try and pot up or down at this late stage, or, as has happened, dig up a plant from the garden - it just won't work, the judges will find you out!
  
• Check show schedule and note which plants will be entered into which class and pencil in on entry form.
  
• Check now that your plants are pest and disease free . There will still be time to clear minor problems, but on no account take badly infected plants to the Show, it is not fair on other competitors whose plants could be contaminated and if spotted by stewards or judges your plant would be removed anyway.
  
• Replace faded or dirty name labels.