Showy Forsythia

Forsythia is the shrub that shouts spring. Before the leaves appear, every branch is covered in bright yellow flowers, four-lobed, tubular, an inch or more across, turning the entire plant into a yellow beacon that is visible from a block away. It is one of the earliest flowering shrubs in the landscape, blooming in March in the Puget Sound lowlands, and for two to three weeks it is impossible to miss. It grows fast to about ten feet with an arching, fountain-like habit, and after the flowers finish it becomes a green backdrop for the rest of the season. Native to eastern Asia (a horticultural hybrid), it has been a suburban landscape staple for decades.

Forsythia is easy in Western Washington. Full sun for the best flowering, adaptable soils, fast growth, and genuine toughness. Three diseases and one pest are tracked, nothing that threatens a healthy plant. The maintenance consideration is pruning: forsythia blooms on last year's wood, so prune immediately after flowering. Prune in winter and you lose the spring show. The plant's exuberant growth habit means it will outgrow a tight space quickly, and shearing it into a box destroys the arching form that makes it graceful. Let it be a fountain. If it outgrows its spot, renovation pruning, cutting the entire plant to the ground after flowering, produces vigorous new growth that flowers the following spring. For the single most reliable early-spring color impact in the regional palette, forsythia has no peer.