Gardeners tend to think that forsythias all look the same – and of course, it’s true, they’re all yellow. The shade of yellow varies a little, but look carefully and you notice that there are other differences. This new introduction from France is a case in point.
Gold Mine (‘Mindor’) has a number of good qualities. Its upright and spreading habit is welcome as so many others, including the popular ‘Lynwood’, are more arching and untidy. Its bright flowers are also crowded tightly along the stems – which is especially striking when the stems are cut for the house – and the stems are covered with flowers right to the base.
The leaves are an unusually dark shade of green so make a better summer background for flowers and climbers than that of other forsythias, especially as they’re flat rather than folded along the midrib as in some other varieties. The freely branching stems of Gold Mine are also unusually dark.
Gold Mine is not the most dwarf of forsythias, it reaches about 75cm in three years but eventually makes a taller plant. But it’s more compact than most and, like all forsythias, is best pruned after flowering and this can be used to control the height.
This plant was actually available for a couple of years about six or seven years ago under then name Show Off but only a very few plants were sold. Now it’s available much more widely. It arose as a sport on the variegated form ‘Fiesta’ (itself a sport of the old favourite ‘Lynwood’) on the Minier nursery in France in 1997.
