Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Mid Atlantic region- winter chores, 1 by HollyAnnS

HollyAnnS wrote:
I have had that forsythia almost as long as I have lived here. It started out as an experiment. I only let a few branches grow and braided them together cutting off all other branches. I was trying to make a forsythia tree. Over the years we had a few set backs, it got run over by a delivery truck maybe stone or cement can't quite remember, so it got started all over again. It wouldn't quite stand up so I added a few more braided branches to the trunk. Over the years I did get it to some what stand but it always needed a bit of a prop and I couldn't quite get it to cascade (like a willow tree) the way I wanted. So it ended up looking like a misshapen yellow ball on a propped up braided trunk. LOL
I finally gave up and cut it down and let it grow in naturally.
Talk about guilt, first the birds were yelling at me, and the forsythia was grabbing at my clothes and hair, putting up a good fight, then my old memories. I am going to dig up one of the small clumps and find a spot for it somewhere around here, just can't quite get rid of the whole thing. You should have seen the look on Ric's face when he offered to cut it back a little more with his chainsaw and I explained that I'm putting a tree there so the 30 yr old roots have to be dug up. I will have to look though my old pics and see if I can find one of my experiment. This is what it looked like a couple of years ago. The very large bush on the right is the Quince that I am cutting back to a more reasonable size.