Forcing Forsythia

Spring is in the air, but for those of us who are too impatient to wait for spring to arrive,

allow me to show you how to force it to arrive a wee bit early for you!

Have you ever FORCED budding branches? It is so simple and the brings beautiful color into your home during winter!

Below on the left is one of my forsythia bushes in the back yard. Forsythia is a fast growing vase shaped bush, with arching branches.

My plant is relatively young, but you can see it stands over 7 ft. tall. The pic on the right shows the one lonely bloom and tons of small green buds.

To FORCE forsythia, choose a day that is ABOVE freezing. Start by trimming long branches from your bush. I cut around 3 foot lengths.

 

Next you want to have a tall vase ready with warm water in it. In a large bowl trim each branch, cutting in an angle, UNDER water.

To move the branch to the vase I placed my thumb over the cut end and quickly placed the branch in the warm water vase.

This prevents any air bubbles from forming, allowing maximum hydration.

The more hydration your branches have, the sooner the buds will swell and bloom.

Set your vase aside, out of direct sunlight. In about 4-8 hours, recut (under water) and place back in your vase again with fresh water.

Repeat cutting and refreshing of water once a day. I cut my branches on a Sunday (left pic) and 5 days later they looked like this (right pic)!

 

How gorgeous is this? Use your forsythia branches alone or combine with other fresh cut flowers for a dramatic arrangement.

Have you forced before?

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Kim