K....are you certain they were fuchias? I have never heard of fuchias being used as a pond plant before! Yes, they like moist soil, but to place them in a pond on a shelf is a certain way of killing them as they are definately NOT pond plants at all. I would go back to the store and question the salesperson plant knowledge and ask for a refund. Tell him to get some lessons in horticultre also!!! I would doubt very much if they can be saved as their roots are not designed to be in constant contact with so much water...but you have nothing to lose by trying. Dry them out asap...remove from the pots and wrap in newspaper to absorb excess water, I'd probably cut them back to reduce stress and keep your fingers crossed. Then take a drive back to that store and search out that silly salesperson. Gill.

When you say tree, do you mean a single trunk of some length with branches at the top or did your fuchsia look more like a shrub with several branches coming out of the ground? There are quite a few varieties of fuchsia that are winter hardy in zone 8 if the rootball is planted deep enough. Although the top of the plant dies back in winter fresh growth comes up from the rootball in the spring. If your plant was a 'tree' fuchsia it would have to have been given winter protection, somewhere it wouldn't freeze, given just enough water to keep the roots from drying out. With fuchsias that are left in the ground over winter don't cut the dead looking branches off in the spring until you can see where new growth is coming from, then cut just above where you see new growth or to shape. Whichever type you had it looks like the root survived the winter, the new growth appearing now will grow and flower.

Do you have problems with vine weevil in your area Keilamarie? If so that's what it looks like to me, the adults do no harm to the plant except for biting pieces out of the leaves, the grubs that live in the surrounding soil, nibble at the soft white roots. We treat the surrounding soil with Provado which kills the grubs. You can tell if it is vine weevil. After dark go out and shine a torch light on your plant, if you see a greyish/black coloured beetle that's it, pick it off and stamp on it :) I suggest you ask your neighbours if they have had this problem, if it's not vine weevil it might be a similar bug that I'm not familar with - Kath:)

There's a great deal of variability with the hardiness of 'hardy' fuchsias but I've found most to be fully root hardy once established. But that pertains to inground planting situations - containerized hardy fuchsias will be vulnerable to the same extremes of cold as any other containerized tree or shrub and depending on the specific selection and the size of the container and its location, they may very well have experienced root damage due to cold. Hardy fuchsias are quite late to leaf out. Often one doesn't see any signs of life until well into April or May. I'd recommend not doing anything major in the way of pruning or repotting until that time. As for treating as herbaceous perennials, I'd consider them more in the category of caryopteris, perovskia or romneya or other woody based deciduous subshrubs/perennials. Wait until you see new growth emerging, then remove any obviously dead wood and trim back to a permanent woody framework. The ultimate size of this framework will depend on specific variety.