This forsythia put out a mere two yellow blossoms the spring after I transplanted it to Rockaway. It started out in a feta-cheese barrel in Astoria, spent a season in Little Italy, and here it is now. There are gardeners who, in such a tiny yard (two square yards, actually), would not give so much space to a plant that blooms so briefly, but that first yellow is worth it to me after the winter. It ignites the spectrum.
I hope the forsythia will set an example for the wisteria, which bloomed for the first time last Labor Day, out of season: a single fragrant chain of an indescribable color for which there is no precise word that doesn't rely on some other flower (violet, lavender, lilac, heather, hyacinth, hydrangea ...). It's a well-established plant: the vine climbs over the roof and leaps to the house next door, and its roots snake under the house and shoot up on the other side. That freak late-summer blossom came after I had cut the vine back, so this spring I pruned severely, hoping to scare it into wisterical bloom.
4 comments:
Wisteria is one of my favorites. I hope that yours blooms this year, MJN. It should be flowering early to mid May if it's keeping to schedule, right? We have a reluctant lilac tree that every once and a while sports one tiny blossom or two.
Our wisteria grows like a, well, mo-fo, but never blooms. We cut it waaaay back this fall (strong little devil, it was dangerously close to prying the shingles off the roof), so maybe it'll bloom like yours.
Do you take some forsythia in to blossom early? My forced forsythia is blooming in a lovely way on my dining room table, although I don't think it's blooming outside yet.
Post a Comment