The Forsythia Hedge Around a Washington Fountain That Outlived a Garden

Every spring a golden hedge of forsythia rings Fountain No. 4 near the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, and it has outlasted the nursery, the rose garden and three other fountains that once stood beside it. It is now part of the setting of the George Mason Memorial.

Forsythia hedge in bloom with Japanese cherry blossoms and saucer magnolia framing the Washington Monument, March 2021 (NPS/Gjesfjeld).

At a glance

The memorial is south of the Tidal Basin, near the eastern approach to the Inlet Bridge in West Potomac Park. It was dedicated in 2002 to Virginia statesman and Founding Father George Mason. Before it was built, the site was known for Fountain No. 4 and planting beds of thousands of pansies ringed by a golden hedge of forsythia, set among saucer magnolias and other flowering trees, including the Japanese cherry trees by the Tidal Basin.

How the garden grew

Fountain No. 4 was built in 1905 by the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds, one of four fountains in a nursery and rose garden in the newly developed Potomac Park. The nursery grew shrubs, trees, perennials and rosebushes for the parks the office looked after.

Map of the nursery grounds and Fountain No. 4 from the 1906 annual report on the care of public buildings and grounds.

A 1906 map shows "flowering shrubs" around the fountain, but it is not known whether they were forsythia. In 1917 the office reported moving a heavy planting of forsythia and other shrubs from the shores of the Tidal Basin, which suggests forsythia was well established there by then.

In 1931 a "Plan to Revise the Pansy Garden" was drawn up ahead of the George Washington Bicentennial, and by November of that year 120,000 pansy plants had been set out in the great beds. The garden drew visitors who came to see the nearby cherry blossoms, and some made it an annual tradition. The Washington Post reported in March 1942 that old residents were worried about road work nearby, because the circular pansy beds and their forsythia drew many people each year.

In 1947 the nursery and rose garden and the other three fountains were demolished to make way for the Fourteenth Street Bridge, which crosses the Potomac to Virginia.

Aerial photograph of Fountain No. 4 and the Pansy Garden, October 1968, with the forsythia along the outside edge marked by a red arrow (U.S. Geological Survey).

Even with highways closing in, the fountain and pansy garden stayed a showplace in bloom season for decades, with pansies, magnolia, forsythia, tulip, camellia and jonquil, and sometimes lights at night. In 1966, as part of Lady Bird Johnson's beautification program in Washington, 26 new forsythia of the 'Lynwood Gold' cultivar were planted along the eastern edge, renewing the hedge.

By the early 1990s the garden's historic character was largely unchanged apart from some plantings altered to cut maintenance. The hedge was made of forsythia and red-osier dogwoods. The George Mason Memorial, designed by Rhodeside and Harwell of Alexandria, Virginia, was placed in the garden, and the forsythia hedge was kept and built into the design despite its "leggy" look. The National Park Service's rehabilitation of the site with the Trust for the National Mall, completed in 2019, also worked to preserve the forsythia.

The memorial with Fountain No. 4 at its center and the golden ring of forsythia, March 2021 (NPS/Gjesfjeld).

About the shrub

The genus is named for William Forsyth (1737-1804), an eighteenth-century Scottish botanist and one of the seven founding members of the Royal Horticultural Society. Forsythia is one of the first shrubs to flower in early spring; its bright yellow, four-petaled flowers come out before the leaves. Forsythia x intermedia is a hybrid of weeping forsythia (Forsythia suspensa) and greenstem forsythia (Forsythia viridissima), which is where "intermedia" comes from.

Forsythia in bloom, March 2021 (NPS/Gjesfjeld).

Keeping a hedge in shape

Forsythia belongs to the olive family and has few disease or pest problems. It is easy to grow, does well in well-drained soil and full sun, and also tolerates poor and compacted soils. It grows vigorously and needs regular pruning; given the right conditions it can reach about six to nine feet, which makes it a good privacy shrub or hedge.

The flowers appear on the current season's growth, so to get the most bloom the next year, prune after flowering but before mid-July. Hand pruners or limb loppers usually do the job. An overgrown shrub can be cut back in phases, removing the oldest branches over three years, or more drastically, by pruning to the ground and letting it resprout. That full rejuvenation can be repeated every three to four years.

Sources

• National Park Service, National Mall and Memorial Parks, Forsythia at the George Mason Memorial; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The page draws on the 1906 annual report on the improvement and care of public buildings and grounds, Historic American Landscapes Survey HALS DC-59, DeWolf and Hebb's "The Story of Forsythia" (Arnoldia, 1971) and the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension.