Garden Update: Time to Prune Forsythia

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By David Silver on April 18, 2012, 8:02am

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The recent heat has pushed most of the forsythia past the flowering stage. Although forsythia can be pruned any time of the year, the hard pruning immediately following the bloom is best. Now is the time to prune because forsythia blooms best on one year old wood.

How do we know that the best bloom is obtained on one year old wood? This is wisdom that has been passed down by generations of gardeners. I have always known this, but decided to test it for myself. I pruned a stand of forsythia in my back yard immediately after the bloom but I let the front of it go and pruned that in the Fall. As this photo shows, I got the best bloom from the Spring pruning just as the flowers faded. Those flowers are still going strong. The Fall pruning only produced a modest bloom and as everyone has seen, this year, the Forsthyia in general, were spectacular. The section that was pruned in the Fall is already green. The section that was pruned in the Spring is still yellow.

I am not a big fan of these un-natural shapes for forsythia such as round balls and squares. I prefer a wilder look, especially at the edge of the woods where my forsythia grows. I cut with hand shears and you can cut anywhere along the stems and it will branch out from there. As with any pruning, you should always remove as much of the dead wood as possible. This time of year, it will be easy to see as all the dead wood will have no leaves and no buds.

This experiment was not a major loss and it was certainly educational! If I prune the entire forsythia now, next season I should have a strong bloom all over.

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