Rather an unkempt shrub most of the year, so I am always cutting back wayward branches, but Forsythia is worth the extra trouble. In spring, nothing can beat all of those cheery yellow blooms.

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Beautiful shrub that needs a little shaping, and take care that you don't let branches drape over unless you want to let them root and spread. Very easy to grow from cuttings in early spring. A few twigs make a great gift idea for Easter baskets. After it blooms, I try to dress it up with a tall companion annual, such as cosmos or tall zinnias planted in front of it. You can even let morning glory vines climb over it, and this tough shrub will survive as long as you don't do that every summer.

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Certainly one of the most well known and widely planted shrubs in the US Mid Atlantic suburbs, Forsythia is a welcome sight for a week in spring. For the rest of the year, I find it not especially attractive, more so because it is often used along property lines or in foundation beds, where it outgrows its space and is subject to acts of pruning desperation. It is a rangy sprawling thing that could possibly stand to be cut down to a foot every spring after bloom and let regrow, as you would a butterfly bush (but that is cut late winter). If you must have a forsythia, give it about 12 feet of clear width all around. I'll admit I am basing all this on decades of experience with decades old cultivars planted in the 1960s and 1970s. Maybe some new ones are better behaved, but I doubt it.

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Depending on the botanist, there are about 7 to 13 species, with one native to southeast Europe and the rest to northeastern Asia. This genus in the Olive Family (Oleaceae) was named after William Forsyth, who was a Scottish gardener who became superintendent at the royal gardens of Kensington Palace. They are deciduous shrubs that bear the famous yellow 4-petal flowers in early spring, usually about 10 to 14 days, before the leaves emerge. The inconspicuous fruit is a two-celled, dehiscent capsule housing winged seeds. The leaves and buds are opposite on the squarish, greenish or yellowish-brown twigs, though the European species has more rounded, tan twigs. The soft-wooded stems start to branch close to the ground, making a dense bush. Professional horticulturists are not as passionate about Forsythia shrubs as is the general public because it is more of a "one season" plant noted for its yellow flowers. Otherwise, they don't have good fall colour, handsome bark, handsome buds, or a neat and clean habit. In order to look good, they need heavy pruning, not shearing, not long after they bloom to remove the dead and crossing stems, so much twigginess, and removal of ground suckers. Some species will slowly form a colony.

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