A landscaper once tried to talk me out of planting a forsythia shrub because he said it was ‘weedy’. I don’t know what he meant by that, but I think he meant that it grows in a kind of chaotic way, and can be a little higgledy-piggledy in the garden.
I’m okay with a little chaos in my garden, esp. if it means that I have a good excuse to go out and prune away all the criss-crossing branches, creating a pleasant shape for future growth, and then be left with enough pruned branches to provide:
a) exuberant arrangements for the house
b) edible flowers to bedeck the night’s glass of chilled wine
c) more flowers to freeze into ice cubes and store for a future party — sadly, no Easter party this year, or they’d be making an appearance there, oh well
d) and if my grocery store order of honey ever arrives, MORE flowers to make into forsythia flower honey syrup
Forsythia. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. 