A befuddled forsythia bush blooms in three seasons
One of my forsythias is very confused.
No, I don鈥檛 mean that this variegated shrub cannot determine if it is green with yellow blotches or if it is yellow with green blotches. My Forsythia x intermedia Variegata cannot tell what season it is.
Despite some hard freezes and two inches of snow, much of the foliage is still at its peak, as subtly twin-toned as that is. It鈥檚 summer!
Half of the leaves, however, are turning shades of red, auburn, cream and burgundy, all whirled together. It鈥檚 fall!
And to further the head-scratching, this delusional plant is actually blooming. Really. It鈥檚 !
So there you have it 鈥� a forsythia with two colors and three seasons.
An aside: Remember my compendium about variegated forsythias?
Well, Golden Times also does something a trifle quirky. It has babies.
Its lower branches droop so low that some rest on the ground 鈥� and then air-layers themselves. The branches take root, and after awhile you can just snip this pup from the mother plant and put it anywhere else you dang well please.
Besides the original plant, I have a few others dotting my acreage to brighten up mixed borders, and I have also started a Golden Times hedge.
So I guess my original purchase price was actually a hedge fund.
What else I鈥檓 into this week: The Foo Fighters. No, Foo Fighters. Foo Fighters. They鈥檝e finally released a comp.
Craig Summers Black is an award-winning writer, editor, and photographer who gardens feverishly on a weedy acreage in the Midwestern heartland. He has found that it can be more than a tad colder in Iowa than at his previous gardens in California, Hawaii, Texas, and Florida.
Editor鈥檚 note: Look for more blog posts by The Transplanted Gardener, Craig Summers Black, at our . The Monitor鈥檚 main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. See also our . You may want to visit . Take part in and get answers to your gardening questions. If you join the group (it鈥檚 free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
