willowy

Among spring blooming shrubs, one of my favorite is forsythia.

The previous owner of our house had a hedge of forsythia on the west side, clipped like a privet.

I am sure that the intent was not malicious, but what an insult to such a wonderfully wild plant. I have a similar prejudice against clipped azaleas, too, but since I am back in the alkaline belt, what azaleas one sees here are few and uninspiring, so my rant button doesn't get pushed that often over their abuse in this manner.

Forsythia. Even the name sounds lovely. Left to its proper habitat, it will grow long, willowy limbs that shoot out of the trunk, curving and twisting toward the light.

It's yellow blooms in spring can, like many spring bloomers, be too brilliant, too gaudy, but when do we need that shock of color most than after the exile of barren winter?

To clip this plant into a hedge is to deny its true essence. There are so many better choices for a clipped shrub than forsythia.

I transplanted the plants forming the hedge three years ago, coming up with about nine or so solid little plants. This third year, they have started putting out the long, limber branches, and I feel as if I personally liberated them.

However, like many blooming shrubs, left to their own device, they will become overwhelming. To keep blooming shrubs healthy and manageable, it is important to thin them out (the season immediately after they bloom), taking old woody limbs out, letting new ones thrive and grow.

This is the time of year when a limb or branch can be brought inside, put in a sunny window in a vase of water, and the blooms forced open for color inside. In our corner of zone 5, outside of a few croci, nothing is blooming yet. But one more wave of warmth, and the spring rollout will begin.

If one lives in the DC area (or is visiting), then you have to go to Dumbarton Oaks Gardens in Georgetown. Beatrice Farrand, the designer, created a paradise of forsythia on one edge of the garden, and standing in the middle of these plants, one sees the visual power of many forsythia amassed together. But hurry. The bloom cycle doesn't last forever.