Forsythia Week

Thanks to a very warm weekend with temperatures topping out at 24 degrees on Saturday afternoon as we took part in Hamburg räumt auf, a city-wide spring-cleaning tidy-up campaign on the streets and in parks, the Forsythia has got away to an early start in week 2011/14. The purebred F. 'Linwood' was a couple of days earlier off the mark this year than the mongrel types we adopted from surrounding gardens. By contrast, the Abeliophyllum distichum seems slower to blossom. It is in any case much smaller than the vigorous Forsythia shrubs. The daffodils are also in full bloom.

Forsythia Week

This looks to be another early Forsythia year: these shrubs are now well into a great display of yellow blossom in 2010/14. This is our first season with an Abeliophyllum distichum in the garden: it is sometimes called "snow forsythia". It has a very impressive, hard-white blossom. It is giving its name to this week. Some gardens and traffic islands are already showing impressive displays of daffodils, but ours are all holding back. And Pieris, which has flowered in week 14 in the past? This year it seems to be calling a bye.

Forsythia Week

Already we are seeing that no two years are alike. A year ago, Forsythia was first to flower, showing sprays of yellow at this time, to be followed a week later by Pieris x 'Red Mill' and the week after that by Narcissus. Now the order seems to be reversed: the first daffodils are flowering at the start of week 2009/14, and Pieris is shyly coming into blossom with its white flowers, while Forsythia is still holding back. This hybrid Pieris a remarkably forgiving plant. The species normally requires an acidic, peaty soil, but Red Mill copes well with our neutral, sandy soils. I rashly bought Pieris floribunda a year ago, placed it in a dry raised bed and nursed it through its first summer with copious watering, but the winter quickly killed it. When I tore the carcass out, the sand below it was as dry as the dunes at a sunny beach. The early appearance this week of the daffodils - whole drifts of them are merrily in flower by the Saturday - suggests that the soil may perhaps have been warmer in the late phase of this past winter than it was a year ago. Ribes sanguineum 'Atrorubens' is playing a waiting game in this week.

Forsythia Week

2008/14: The various Forsythia types bloom at different times. Specimens in distant gardens seem to be out already, but the progress here is slower. Our 'Lynwood' also seem to be rather later than the common Forsythia suspensa.