It turns out the scraggly bushes on the west side of The Box House are forsythia. Beautiful, but dreadfully overgrown forsythia. They are over ten feet tall, with a lot of dead wood and looking a bit leggy. A friend of ours who is a master gardener has recommended hacking them to the ground to force new growth and improve their condition. I think I'll go as far as taking out all the dead wood, the rogue tree growing through the middle of one of them, and trim it back by half. I know they are hardy and can stand such vigorous pruning, but I'd still like to leave some height in place. View from the other side:
"If you don't know what's meant by God, watch a forsythia branch or a lettuce leaf sprout." —Martin Henry Fischer
