Fuchsia Display rust

Dirty Harry

A few leaves like this all over the plant and the ones that don't look bad from above have the beginnings of what's shown in the second picture on the underside of them.

A quick google suggests fuchsia rust. My mint plant had rust as well and I've just chopped it down. Is the best bet to do this with the fuchsia or is there anything worth trying first?

Lyn

Cut the fuchsia right down and dispose of the rusty stuff, not in the compost bin, you need to take it out of the pot, and repot in fresh compost.  I get it sometimes,  not this year though, and it doesn’t necessarily mean death to the fuchsia. This does happen to mint also to chives, I just cut right down, they should be fine next year, my chives have been in the ground longer than I can remember.     

Dirty Harry

When you say repot I assume you mean the size up and not just removing some of the old compost and back in the same pot?

What could have been a contributing factor? I always made an effort not to water the leaves. It did seem to need water quite often so just wonder if it's a touch pot-bound already even though it's only been in the pot since spring.

Borderline

Don't be hard on yourself. Sometimes, some plants are more prone to rust. It may have already been on your plants all along. Sometimes, they don't visibly show. Just cut away the areas that look badly infected. I would remove top layers of soil and put in new soil.

Lyn

As borderline says, replace the soil. Why worry about not watering the leaves, the rain gets on them they love it.
 If they’ve been in the same pot since spring they probably are pot bound.  (Not that that’s a contributing factor), they like their roots free, don’t press the soil down hard around them and never put into a black pot, they like cool roots and black attracts the heat. 
Mine are now in quite large pots, probably 12 - 14” diameter. 

Dirty Harry

Best to wait until next Spring to repot though?

Lyn

No, Harry, I would get it out of that compost now, and use fresh.  The rust will be laying
on the top of the compost. 

cornelly

I get rust, and remove all the leaves, cut back stems by a third at the end of the flowering period, always repot in the spring for next years flowers, doesn't seem to affect the plants, they come back next year, standards obviously don't cut back main stem.

Dirty Harry

When I said repot I meant in the next pot size up.

I already took it out the pot the other day and removed what compost I could off the top layer and added some fresh compost in the bottom too.

I've also got a hardy fuchsia in the ground and just noticed some small amounts of rust on the odd leave but nothing like this. Would I get away with just removing the visibly affected areas just now?

Lyn

I won’t bother to pot mine on at this time. Especially if you’ve already added some new compost. They’ll be coming in soon for a rest through the winter. I’m taking cuttings now for next year.
With regard to the hardy one, just remove the leaves and get them off the ground under it, I’m sure it will be fine next year. 
Cut them right down next Spring once you can see new leaf buds about March or April. 

Mark56

I had it last year too, remove old leaves, cut back hard in Spring and pot on to a bigger container all worked, as well as semi/part shade. It won’t necessarily return if the rust doesn’t over winter