Reason to prune weeping Forsythia?
Fleemo
weeping Forsythia bush that just finished flowering, and looks
beautiful. I'm wondering what the advantages of pruning this
beautiful bush would be.
-F
dr-...@wi.rr.com.takethisoff
Ingrid
flee...@attbi.com (Fleemo) wrote:
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paghat
dr-...@wi.rr.com.takethisoff wrote:
> older "wood" doesnt flower well, new wood (this years) will flower better.
> Ingrid
Actually if I'm not having a memory lapse, this year's wood blooms next
year. I've read several times that old wood blooms poorly on forsythias,
but from my own enormous specimen I've found this just isn't true. It has
gone years without any pruning to speak of, & you would be hard pressed to
find any limb on it anywhere that isn't richly fully wildly & equally full
of blooms each spring.
I have to take the usual expert warning to heart, that EVENTUALLY there
will be so many limbs that the overall look of the shrub will be harmed, &
the shrub will use so much energy supporting it's vast & increasing
numbers of limbs that it will stop blooming so well. This would take five
years of never ever being pruned. It'll bloom fine in the meantime.
> flee...@attbi.com (Fleemo) wrote:
>
> >I keep reading to hard prune Forsythia after it flowers. I have a big
> >weeping Forsythia bush that just finished flowering, and looks
> >beautiful. I'm wondering what the advantages of pruning this
> >beautiful bush would be.
Forsythias are way too often pruned way too soon, & many of them look thin
& stubby & homely as result. Oh, a forsythia savaged by pruning looks okay
when it's a yellow-blooming stubby bush, but when the flowers are done
there's nothing but the ruined shortened limbs, whereas if it is allowed
to "take wing" & reach its full massive weeping proportions, it's just
beautiful year round (I think it's twigs are beautiful even in winter & I
include a winter portrait of it on my Forsythia Page).
Annual pruning is certainly too often. I'd think once every three or four
years would be plenty. Lesser selective pruning of limbs that are in the
way in the meantime if really necessary. When the pruning is finally done
the oldest branches should be taken off right down to the crown. A full
third of the limbs can be taken out to restore an airier look. That would
constitute "hard pruning," but it just doesn't have to be done annually.
And by the time it is done there should be plenty of two & three year old
branches as long as the oldest branches, so its sweeping fountaining form
needn't be harmed.
What should NOT be done to a weeping forsythia is to "stubbify" its
branches halfway down. If a compact little shrub is needed, something
small & compact shoiuld've been planted there in the first place. A
forsythia intermedia is gonna look terrible butchered for size. I go into
some detail about my own sentiments on restrained & reluctant pruning on
my Forsythia Page:
http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/paghat/forsythia.html#top
I installed that door-trellis because the forsythia kept blocking the door
& changing the architecture seemed better than harrassing the shrub for
doing so well.
-paghat
--
"Flowers are commonly badly designed, inartistic in
color, & ill-smelling." -Ambrose Bierce
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl:
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