Staring out the kitchen window this morning, I noticed the forsythiae blooming in the garden. As has been the case for the past six or seven years at least, rather than the big blaze of color one hopes for, they have come out again in rayther half-hearted, anemic handfuls of yellow flowers.
My fellow port-swillers, I tell you truly that I am sick and tired of this hedge. I know all about how forsythia blooms on new wood. I have tried hogging it back in mid-spring, I have tried leaving it alone. I have tried feeding it and I have tried not feeding it. It’s not that the plants themselves aren’t healthy – they regularly grow to twelve feet and leaf out very thickly. It’s just that come spring they just don’t seem to feel like putting any effort into flowering.
Bloody welfare cheats.
Pondering this lack of enthusiasm, I resolved that I am going to take sterner measures this year. Usually, I’ve cut them back to a height of about four feet or so after they’ve finished blooming. Evidently, this is not enough, so this time around I’m going to raze them right down to within a foot or two of their lazy-behinded root systems.
See if I don’t.
7 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 25, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Diane
We had a climbing floribunda on the south side of our garage, right next to the sidewalk. It bloomed beautifully in spring – for about two weeks. Then it was nothing but a seven foot high, four foot wide, two foot deep thorn thicket with tendrils that grabbed anything passing in a five foot radius.
Mom got tired of it, and one fall spent several days ruthlessly cutting it back to below ground level, intending to pull out the root ball the next spring.
You guessed it – she never got to it, and it grew bigger, faster and bloomed more than ever before.
March 25, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Robbo
Of course, that’s exactly what I would like to have happen. The trouble is that they know it, so will probably find some way to thwart me.
March 25, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Sister
You can have ours at Birchwood. The only attention it gets is a massive thwacking if someone has time. It blooms like a maniac (or a Maine-i-ac, ha ha) so much so that the renters cut it and bring it inside. It is colossal and blocks the path to the back yard. I don’t know much about these so can’t offer advice. I think you are right to whack it right back and see what happens. It’s either going to die – and hey you can think of something else to put there – or it will come back all fab. A no lose situation.
Hey – go for it. (to be said in a – ahem – particular accent).
March 26, 2010 at 2:33 am
Mink Monica
Hellz yeah, cut it way back! I hear that giving hydrangea a crewcut will help adjust its attitude, too. And won’t it feel so good to hack away at it?
March 26, 2010 at 12:21 pm
NOVA Curmudgeon
Yours sounds like the forsythia outside our family room window. For some reason its VERY, as you say “anemic” this year. A result of the hard winter?
March 26, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Robbo
Maybe, but I haven’t noticed any particular diminution in the flowering of some of the other bushes in teh neighborhood. Perhaps yours, like mine, is just indulging in some cussedness.
March 26, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Sister
Ours get plenty of hard winters up here in Maine and they are glorious. I would have thought that your winter this year would have produced a nice bloom. Odd. It might be that your soil is not the correct acidity or ph or whatever. That would be where I would start if you are actually interested in keeping it and having it do well.