Fabulous fuchsias soon light up dull corners in your garden

I first became interested in the New Zealand fuchsia when my brother taught me how to smoke it. I suspect many young Kiwis had their introduction to smoking in the local bush, rolling the flaky bark of the kotukutuku into an organic-looking cigar and then trying to get the bloody thing to light.
It's strange that we chose fuchsia to smoke because it's known to be extremely fire-resistant and even when it's been dried the timber is reluctant to catch.
The reference book Maori Healing and Herbal says that fuchsia is known for giving you a "heavy sensation in the head" if you eat too many of the berries, which may well have been one of the qualities that attracted us to it in our teenage years.
Those in our gang who were unfortunate enough to achieve combustion probably never smoked again, since inhaling burning fuchsia bark is not much fun.
I lost interest in fuchsias after that, but my mother grew them with spectacular success in our Dunedin garden and now, lo and behold, they're in fashion again, along with dahlias, hydrangeas and other "grandma" plants.
They are named after 16th-century German doctor Leonhart Fuchs, and there are more than 100 species, although most garden examples are hybrids bred for their showy flowers. They are usually big and pendulous and therefore susceptible to damage, so the first rule for growing them successfully is to protect the blooms from disturbance.
They like gentle conditions with regular watering, adequate drainage, no wind, no scorching sun and a nice, even temperature. Don't we all.
They will flower in full sun but their preference is filtered light - good news since their stunning flowers will brighten up the dimmer corners of the garden. My mother grew hers under a ngaio tree in quite a damp, shady corner and they rewarded her with spectacular blooms.
The ideal soil is a light to medium loam that's not too acidic. Compost will improve soils that are too light or too heavy. If you decide to grow fuchsias in containers or hanging baskets, use a specially formulated soil mix and a slow release fertiliser.
In the garden, it's recommended to feed them in early spring and then monthly through the flowering season. Be prepared to prune. If not pruned, fuchsias tend to become leggy and forget to flower, so cut them back in late winter for early summer flowering. Get rid of all the thin, twiggy stuff and cut back the strong stems, leaving two or three sets of nodes at the base of last season's growth.
Fuchsias are quite accommodating in terms of what they'll do, so you can choose whatever style appeals. For a domed bush shape, remove the growing tip and top pair of leaves. Side-shoots will grow and these should have their growing tips pinched out to allow plenty of flower shoots to form.
If you plan to display your fuchsias in hanging baskets - and they lend themselves beautifully to this - let the side shoots grow over the sides of the basket before trimming them. Trimming will delay flowering a bit but you'll ultimately get a better shape and more flowers.
Fuchsias make fantastic standards, which suits their rather old-fashioned look. Choose a strong, upright growing plant, keep it staked, remove all side shoots, but leave the leaves. When it is about 75cm to 100cm tall, pinch out the top, followed by the resulting side-shoots, until a full, bushy head has developed.
A well-fed, watered and pruned fuchsia should be pretty healthy, but to keep most problems at bay you can simply include it in your rose spraying programme - assuming anyone who admires gorgeous, old-fashioned fuchsias will also grow gorgeous, old-fashioned roses.
The future is in our hands
One of our few native deciduous trees, the tree fuchsia  kotukutuku, sheds its papery bark and leaves in the winter in cooler districts (so no smoking in the winter months). It flowers from July to December. The small flowers change from a yellow-green to purple-red and are rich in nectar, attracting humble bumbles as well as hard-working honeybees and nectar-feeding birds like tui, bellbirds and silvereyes. The dark purple berries, known as konini, are
edible and said to taste like tamarillos.
Possums love the whole of the tree fuchsia and have eaten it out of many locations - a good reason to try growing some from cuttings. Evidently it's really easy, but don't go mad - remember it's thought to be the world's largest fuchsia, reaching 12m  with a 1m  trunk in the ideal conditions of a good, damp New Zealand forest.