Splash of Gold Heralds Spring
Forsythia Most Beautiful in its Natural State
Last updated Wednesday, March 21, 2007 5:14 PM CDT in Your Home
By Gerald Klingaman: Ozark Gardens
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This has been a perfect year for forsythia. Evaluating the beauty of a forsythia display is a bit like remembering fall color from previous years. In both cases the beauty in front of me dulls my senses and makes me feel certain this must be the best there ever was. Beauty is such a subjective thing, it doesn't matter one whit. Here and now is near perfect, and next year will only be better.
As I drive around in the spring, it always amazes me that somewhat less than 10 percent of the yards and gardens have a forsythia bush. This is probably a good thing, for if they flashed yellow from every house in town we would begin to think of them as we do Bradford pears; too common, therefore of little value. Personally, I can't imagine a proper garden without a forsythia. For me, at least, it is a boundary marker between winter and spring.
Some well-informed gardeners don't care much for forsythia. They use the argument that a shrub must have more than 10 days of beauty to deserve space in the garden. Such arguments strike me as bogus. I personally think they don't like yellow flowers or, for experts with a bit of a snobbish turning, have turned away from forsythia because it is a shrub of the masses -- an everyman flower that no sensitive gardener would use. Hogwash!
It is true forsythia blooms only last about 10 days, but the allure lasts much longer. In fact, I don't think I anticipate the blooming of anything more than that of forsythia, probably because of its gatekeeper status. So, if you count the days anticipating bloom, its season starts in November and ends in March. Not many shrubs have that long a blooming period!
Forsythia is not without its flaws. First among them is its size. It is a big old mound of a bush wanting to grow 6 to 10 feet tall and twice as wide. By sensible pruning you can keep it considerably smaller, but at heart, it is a big bush. It is too large for use as a foundation planting, and its grace and beauty is destroyed by shearing. Only plant it where its rangy nature can be accommodated.
Like most spring flowering shrubs, forsythia blooms best in full sun -- an area receiving at least six hours of sunlight every day. I have two variegated cultivars in my shade garden, and neither produces more than a few scattered flowers. I know of several shrubs in the neighborhood that are planted under the canopy of oaks where they get good sky light but not direct sunlight. They have good bloom displays every year in this part-shade environment.
Forsythias have a lot of uses in the landscape. They are most commonly seen as specimen plants -- a single plant located at the corner of the property where it just sits there and does its thing. Usually we think of a specimen plant as being a more architectural or sculptural in form, not a mounded cowpie of a shrub. When it blooms it's hard to ignore, but the rest of the year it fades quietly into the background.
The second most common use for forsythia is screening. Its big, brushy nature makes it perfect for use as a modest-sized background planting, windbrake or for obscuring unwanted views. Though it is deciduous, it hardly matters because the plant is so bushy it behaves like an evergreen, blocking wind, noise and visibility. The major drawback for use in screening is its desire to spread ten feet or more across. It works well if your garden is on a farmlet, but is a bit too big for a zero setback subdivision.
A use I don't see much but one worth considering is to use forsythia as a groundcover. I'm not talking about the little, trailing forsythias here. I mean the big, sprawling giants. We seem to have the notion groundcovers can only be a foot tall. Not so. If the space is large enough, pine trees are a great groundcover. A mass planting of forsythia on a bank too steep to mow would be a great groundcover. If planted on 6-foot centers, they would quickly shade out any competition and would be virtually maintenance free.
I've made a game of trying to discern which forsythia cultivar is being grown. I'm always right because, after all, I'm the judge. Two distinct cultivars seem to predominate here; most seem to be either Lynwood Gold or Spring Beauty. There are lots of other cultivars offered from specialists, but they are seldom seen in local nurseries.
Lynwood Gold is a more upright grower capable of reaching 10 feet in height and spread with four-petaled flowers that are -- at least to my eye -- a brassy yellow gold. It is extremely vigorous and heavily laden with blooms each spring. It occasionally gets a touch of purplish-yellow fall color.
Spring Beauty is described as having sulfur yellow flowers. To me this clone is a clear, softer yellow lacking the coppery undertone of Lynwood Gold. It too is a vigorous grower but not quite as fast growing or upright as Lynwood Gold and more spreading in form. It may bloom a few days earlier than Lynwood Gold.
Dwarf forsythias are available but not as commonly offered as they should be. The best I have seen in regard to blooming characteristics is a new one called Gold TideTM. It grows 3 to 5 feet tall and twice as wide and is covered with flowers. Nana is listed, but I've never seen it in nurseries and know nothing about its performance. Bronxensis, an 18-inch tall by 36-inch wide shrub that blooms several weeks later than most forsythia, is a selection of F. viridissima, one of the parents of the modern forsythia cultivars. Its blooms are nice but not stupendous. Arnold Dwarf is a groundcover type that produces few flowers.
A recommendation I would like to make for all who own or manage one of the massive, stacked concrete block retaining walls we see throughout the area is to plant weeping forsythia at the top of the wall. This species, F. suspense var. sieboldii, can grow 10 feet tall if planted on flat ground, but if planted atop a wall its branches spread into the precipices. It doesn't bloom as well as Lynwood Gold or Spring Beauty, but they don't have the pendant habit of growth. Westwood Gardens have them in stock this year, so as a favor to those of us who have to look at these barren brick faces, please plant some to soften the blocks.
If you need to control the size of your forsythia by pruning, cut it back hard as soon as the flowers fade. I have a Spring Beauty forsythia planted in the back of a bed near the drive. I keep it at about 3 feet tall and 4 feet wide by ruthless pruning. Every other year I cut it back to the ground as soon as the flowers fade. As the shoots regrow I top them to get it to branch. The second year I cut it back about half way after flowering, again topping the errant shoots that grow out of bounds with the rest of the plant.
But, if you have room for forsythia to grow unmolested, just leave it alone. It doesn't need pruning to bloom. They are drought resistant and virtually pest free, so other than pruning, maintenance is a breeze.
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