Thursday, April 17, 2008

Forsythia 'Variegata'


This one seems to be pretty common, just a variegated leaf forsythia with no special fancy name. One of the best things about it is the fall color which is a deep burgundy, pink and cream. Ours are in full bloom right now and will be pruned just after blooming. With this one I need to prune at least 4 times a year if I don't want it to just take over everything. It does make a lovely arching plant, but tends to tip root wherever the stems touch the ground so I have to keep up with it. Tip rooting is easy and great if you want lots of new plants - and I use it on many things - but along a path as where this forsythia is, it just gets in the way. Unlike some variegated plants, this one is super vigorous. One forsythia which I don't yet have a picture of is Karl Saxx. A picture really wouldn't tell you anything anyway. It is a tetraploid rather than diploid like the rest of the forsythias. Because of that it seems to have thicker stems and larger flowers. The flowers are also a much deeper gold color. So this ends the forsythia pictures. Not sure where we'll go tomorrow.

1 comment:

Melanie Chopay said...

I was surprised to read how vigorous this one is. As you said, variegated plants usually aren't vigorous. I'm just blown away with the lovely foliage on all of these Forsythias.