HI Voodolily, There are a couple reasons you might want to remove the spent blooms/seedpods from any heavily flowering plant. For one thing, in many flowering plants, the need to make a seed pod is going to be where the plant puts its energy, after all, its the way the plant ensures the continuation of its kind, sort of a biological clock thing. In some plants, not particularly fuschias, the setting on of seed pods signals the plant to start shutting down bloom production and get ready to make seeds. In a plant that would normaly live only one year, or until hard frost, this will aslo mean getting ready for the end of its life span. In heavy feeders, it mostly means that all the nutrients you would want to go into making blossems will be sent into that seed pod, and what ever is left will go to blooms, so the plant is working hard to do both things. If you dont need the seed pods for any particular reason,(for instance some roses are bred to have huge decorative seed pods that will be pretty to look at and feed birds later in the winter) snap the spent bloom off when it begins to fade and wither, and dont bother with the seed head. If you dont plan to use the seeds for any purpose, its the botanical equivalent of going to the mall in your SUV by the least direct route you can imagine. Just spends a bunch of fuel. As well, the part of a fuschia that wild life can use is the bloom, hummers love them, and thats what you want to encourage, if you are just motivated by environmental concerns. Dead heading=More flowers. It would probably not hurt the plant in any way to leave those on, but the plant has to work harder, and unless you find them really attractive, there isnt much point. To answer your question,its not the end of the world one way or the other, but many people do take them Off, and I think its best. If any one else can think of any reason why it would be better to leave them on Id love to know, because there is allways something new to learn in the prosess. Have a nice day and enjoy your fuschias.

I have had hanging Fuschia baskets every year, never have they lasted to the point of going to seed, until this year. Can I use these seeds to grow more fuschias?

Fuchsias have berries rather than pods. They are edible and you can grow Fuchsias from them. But there is no guarantee of what the resultant plants will look like. I've never done it myself but a quick Google turns up lots of advice on how to do it. There is also a FAQ here on GW.