Gardening: Yellow, yellow everywhere…
Soon the Island will be totally yellow from one ferry to the other — then it really will be spring! With the coming of the early daffodils, the crocus and the forsythia, all that yellow should lift our grey winter spirits. If you have any forsythia, there are several things you might like to know.
One of these goes as follows; I can’t give you a source for it because I no longer remember where or how I learned it, but I do know that it’s so. In order for many early-flowering spring shrubs and trees to bloom in any given season, as opposed to opening plain green, they need a certain number of hours of below-freezing temperature.
This is an exact number that varies from plant to plant and if I knew what to call it I’d know how to Google it, but I don’t. I do know, however, that if you see apple blossoms or forsythia in any of those Manhattan East Side florists in January, as one often does, they were probably brought down from upstate because further south there wouldn’t have been as many of the cold hours necessary for them to bloom.
How is this factoid relevant to ordinary folk? If you like a late February or early March living room full of forsythia (and I do!) the thing to do is to take a small cutting, just a twig, some time in January and bring it inside. Put it in some water and just leave it on the kitchen counter or some place where you will routinely see it — this way, you’ll know if you have to add water. In two to three weeks, it should be fully open. If it’s flowering yellow, go for it. Cut as many branches as you like and bring them in. If it opens with only green leaves, try again immediately, because another three weeks will have gone by. Eventually, it will have been cold enough long enough. And if you know the name of this number, shoot me an email or leave me a message.
Another important thing about forsythia is the degree to which it loves to be fed — it’s positively voracious! It’s not that it won’t persevere if you ignore it — it will. But if you feed it, you won’t believe how tall it can become and how well it will bloom.
When I shared a house in Westchester with my daughter and her family, our forsythia was gorgeous. But on the long, winding country road down the hill to that driveway, there was a stand of forsythia, apparently on public property and planted in the shade. Scraggly. Sad. Talking with her about this one day, I posed the question, “How crazy would it be to fertilize some stranger’s forsythia?” Her answer was along the lines of “We see it every day, don’t we? So why would it be crazy?” And we took a pail of 5-10-5, drove up the hill and scattered it about. That’s all it takes, once a month, one season for you to see the difference.
