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New Forsythia Shrubs Are Shorter, Fuller Master gardener Maureen Gilmer, host of Weekend Gardening gives a primer on shrubs.

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Spring Glory is the traditional forsythia cultivar bearing the wide, rangy habit with more extensive flower production. (All photos courtesy of Maureen Gilmer) White Bridal Wreath Spiraea is another old deciduous flowering shrub. The original forsythia with its pale coloring, smallish flowers and rangy habit. Magical Gold Forsythia blooms to the ground with large, intensely colored, densely packed flowers.

By Maureen Gilmer

Sept. 3, 2007 — "Shrubberies are my trade. I am a shrubber. My name is Roger the Shrubber. I arrange, design and sell shrubberies." — From Monty Python

What Monty Python humorously describes is the landscaper's trade, which rests on one group of essential plants: shrubs. Often inaccurately called "bushes," these plants are the woody structural foundation of all gardens. They are large, long-lived and self-sufficient, creating the year around bones of a landscape.

Shrubs also can be the hardest group for a homeowner to understand because it is vast. For horticultural students, the array of miscellaneous green shrubs to learn and identify is mind boggling. So the best place for do-it-yourselfers to start is with the old-fashioned deciduous flowering shrubs that have filled American gardens since Colonial times.

These hardy sorts are all deciduous, losing their leaves in winter. They all bloom in spring, sometimes before the leaves come and sometimes just after they emerge. These are so resilient that you'll find them naturalized at old abandoned homesites where there is enough rainfall to sustain them. They bloom their hearts out each spring without an ounce of care.

Early bloom has made these shrubs a favorite of the country woman who longs for signs of spring at the end of a long dreary winter. Even before the buds burst, limbs can be cut and brought indoors to force the flowers open. The warmth hastens the first color of those early months. Out in the garden many days later these plants can burst into incredible bloom, becoming vivid amidst the still barren landscape.

Forsythia x intermedia is without question the most common harbinger of spring. These large, rangy shrubs explode into a cloud of golden yellow as the winter days grow longer. After blooming, the shrub leafs out into a rich green that makes a perfect neutral background for perennial flowers in the foreground. This original hybrid has produced many cultivars over the years in efforts to tame its rampant growth into a more garden-worthy candidate.

You'll find old forsythias planted as a single specimen on larger home sites. These old plants can grow 10 feet tall and wide at maturity, creating problems for smaller gardens. Many are heavily sheared or used as hedges. If left natural, the hedge will bloom reliably each year, although occasional hard pruning may be required to keep it in bounds. On those corrective years, flowering may be sparse or wholly absent. Shearing forsythia annually can sacrifice the blooms altogether.

Breeders have been working with the older forms to create more floriferous cultivars for contemporary gardens. A new German introduction bred for the flower industry is proving to be one of the best ever. Magical Gold Forsythia, which is also known as Kolgold, is shorter than its predecessors, growing to just five feet tall and four feet wide. The flowers are larger and borne more densely over the entire plant. Old forsythias tend to bloom only on the top two-thirds of the plant, but Magical Gold blooms just as heavily right down to the ground.

This forsythia is perfectly sized for a natural hedge. It is also ideal for foundation planting beneath high windows. It's perfect for the middle tier of a mixed shrub border, where it won't block the taller bloomers behind.

For companion planting, try forsythia with other shrubs that bloom at the same time. In some regions the red flowers of deciduous Japanese flowering quince appear at the very same time, creating a striking red and gold effect. For powerful complementary color dynamics, plant forsythia near purple wisteria vines for a bold, high-contrast attention-getter.

If you're a rank beginner but want to create a great garden around your home, become a shrubber today. Plant Magical Gold or any of the exceptional cultivars of forsythia to earn a gold star next spring.

(Maureen Gilmer is a horticulturist and host of Weekend Gardening. E-mail her at mo@moplants.com. For more information, visit: www.moplants.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)

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