In our first spring here, 2018, when my mom was visiting she mentioned how much she loved forsythia shrubs in the spring for their yellow flowers, which appear early and are a wonderful sign of things to come. So of course, we purchased a couple shrubs (very small, in hindsight, we should have bought something “better”) and planted one in the front at the edge of the “Office View” garden, and one at the back, at the “end” of  the border of “The Orchard”.  I call the former “front forsythia” and the latter “back forsythia”. 

In the following year, neither flowered much, just a few isolated blooms at the base, but lots of greenery came back. By the end of this 2nd year it was clear front forsythia was doing a lot better.  Spring 2020 was a decent display, any by the end of the year FF was twice the size of BF.  Spring 2021 both finally flowered the length of their branches and put on a beautiful display from mid-April, until now (May 1st).