Fast growing. Prune after bloom to maintain shape.

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I remember years ago the Forsythias never had as many flowers as the more modern types. My neighbor grows Lynwood Gold and it is just a mass of yellow blooms each spring.

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This 'Lynwood' or 'Lynwood Gold' is the most commonly sold cultivar of Forsythia in the Midwestern and Eastern USA. It was discovered as a branch sport of the "Spectabilis' cultivar in the garden of Miss Adair in Lynwood, Northern Ireland. Its slightly lighter yellow, more open flowers were better distributed on the twigs. Otherwise, being a Border Forsythia it is a hybrid of the Greenstem Forsythia (F. viridissima') x the Weeping Forsythia (F. suspensa). It is fast and rankly growing, developing upright and arching stems and needs heavy pruning each year right after flowering to keep it neat. The arching stems hit the ground and root just like the mother Weeping Forsythia and forms a colony. The flower buds are less cold hardy than the vegetative buds so that at 15 to 20 below zero, the flower buds die while the leaf buds do not. In the 1950's into the 1990's in the Chicago, IL area, about one third of the springs would see a good bloom. There has been more good blooms in the early 21st century from winters not getting to the maximum cold. Some hybrids between the European x the Early Forsythia as 'Meadowlark' have replaced this 'Lynwood' some in northern Illinois and farther north because of greater flower bud hardiness.

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