How to Grow and Propagate California Fuchsia in Containers

If you’re already thinking about fall color in your garden, I can’t recommend California fuchsia (Epilobium canum) enough. Its tubular bright red and orange flowers bloom in autumn and unfailingly attract hungry hummingbirds, while its soft silvery foliage looks nice all year round. And best news of all for us balcony gardeners: it thrives in pots!

Last spring I bought a California fuchsia plant from Oaktown Native Plant Nursery and fell in love. The variety I purchased, ‘Sierra Salmon,’ bloomed right on cue in early September, after spending summer happily sharing a pot with yerba buena and godetia. It kept blooming right through mid-November, with hummingbirds visiting regularly. But it’s vigorous, and with limited space and container size, I knew I would need to take steps to ensure I never went without this plant.

This spring, my original plant is still going strong, plus I have a little baby I grew from one of its seeds. Learn how I keep my California fuchsia happy in its pot and how I propagated its successor.

The container and soil

As with any perennial shrub, you’ll want to choose a decent-sized container. Mine is roughly 11” deep and 12” in diameter.

Terracotta pots are porous, so I lined mine with a plastic trash bag, trimmed to size and with a drainage hole cut into the bottom. This keeps the soil from drying out too quickly.

In the wild, California fuchsia tolerates a wide range of habitats, from coastal scrub to forests and creeks. It likes good drainage and doesn’t require a lot of fertilizer. I used a combination of roughly two parts cactus mix to one part regular potting soil. 

Light and water requirements

California fuchsia requires full sun to partial shade. I’ve found it tolerates shade on the balcony, though it tends to reach for the sun through the railing bars.

Like many native shrubs, it is drought tolerant once established in the ground, but in a container it needs regular water. Even with the plastic bag lining the pot, mine needs water at least once a week. Water when the top few inches of soil are dry to the touch and the pot seems light when lifted.

Pruning

The base of California fuchsia stems tend to turn brown as they grow, and by the end of the season they look pretty scraggly. Once it has finished blooming (and forming seed pods, if you’re collecting them), you can cut the plant all the way down to the ground in the winter and it will grow back stronger and healthier in the spring.

When you do that, you’ll probably see fresh little shoots emerging already from the base of the plant and from rhizomes around the edge of the pot. It’s not a bad idea to dress the pot with some fresh potting mix at this point to rejuvenate the soil. 

Now in mid-May, my plant has already bounced back to its full height. I even snipped back some of the weaker fresh growth, since it was flopping all over the place. Next year, I’ll probably experiment with dividing the plant in the wintertime. I didn’t want to risk it in the first year, but it’s grown back so vigorously that I’m sure it would have been fine.

Collecting and growing seeds

California fuchsia seed pods are so charming. Once the blooms are spent, they transform into feathery white poofs dotted with tiny black seeds. All the better to float through the air and spread everywhere!

To grow more plants from seed, simply take one of these seed poofs, rub it in to some potting soil, and add water. Keep them moist and in one to two weeks, they’ll start to germinate. You can thin them out and then pot them up into individual pots when they’re a couple inches tall. 

Since the natural time to do this is in the fall, you’ll need to nurse the seedlings through the winter. I brought mine indoors and kept them on my sunny windowsill, but they’re cold tolerant and should be fine outdoors, too. I was having rat problems at the time so wasn’t taking any chances (though if rats are a problem for you, too, know that they don’t seem to like California fuchsia!). Alternatively, you could save the seeds and sow them in the spring.

I started out with three seedlings and by early spring, they were all still alive. However, one was clearly growing stronger than the other two, so I decided to focus my efforts on that one alone. I potted it up into a larger nursery pot and for now, it seems happy and healthy.

I tried taking cuttings in the fall, too. They hung on for a while, but ultimately the seedlings surpassed them in growth and root development. If you’re looking to propagate your California fuchsia, I found the seeds a better method.

It’s a winner

As you can probably tell, I’m mildly obsessed with this plant. It has it all! And I’m happy to report that caring for it and propagating it from seed has so far been a breeze. 

Not all native plants grow well in containers, and with good reason. It’s a challenging, unnatural environment for plants that evolved under specific conditions within complex ecosystems. That’s why California fuchsia is a dream plant for us California container gardeners who want to support our region’s native flora and pollinators from our balconies.