I have quite a few so called hardy Fuschia's, and two Fuschia magellanica, one of which is 12-15 ft tall. Every year there is some dieback for me (2" is the par). I just wait and see where the truly dead wood is. There have been some years, and this might hold true this year after such a nasty winter: For a couple weeks, it is possible to see new growth on the upper part of the branches, and eventually the branches will die back much closer to the main stem, or many times to the ground.

Glenn, I'd wait a few weeks :-) Hardy fuchsias are notoriously late to bud out and given our spring seems to be cooler than normal so far, I'd be surprised to see much growth this early. If you prune too soon you may be cutting off viable growth that shows no signs of life now.

OTOH, substantial winter dieback is common with many varieties - in many cases these should be treated as pretty much herbaceous perennials and it seldom hurts the plants to cut back almost to ground level. You just won't achieve much size if you do this unnecessarily.

As to pruning technique, it depends on the type. On ones that experience a lot of dieback, I do cut back to a couple of inches. Otherwise, I wait until budding is consistant along the stems, then remove any deadwood and any puny little branching, attempting to retain anything that is pencil thickness or larger. On the larger magellanicas, you'll wind up removing a lot of very thin, whippy growth that just doesn't produce or that will be dead wood.

I cut all of mine to the ground a couple of weeks ago. I had called Monnier's fuchsias and asked if it was too early and they said it wasn't. I couldn't stand looking at the dead twigs anymore.

Almost all of them have new growth.

All of mine are magellanicas and they are showing some growth at ground level, but a hint of buds up and down some stems too...although not as many upper buds as I would like to see.

I won't be cutting them back until well into May, they've surprised me too many times by leafing out on stems I thought were dry and dead - the effect I want from them is tall, airy so I'd rather leave as much height as I can.