Forcing Flowering

Now is the right time to prune Forsythia and Abeliophyllum (sometimes called dwarf pink or white forsythia).  Both of these are early flowering shrubs in the olive family. Both sometimes need pruning to keep them in check. The do not need and should not be poodled thereby turning a graceful shape into an ugly ovoid chess piece. You simply look for branches that are ungainly and out of place and cut them off.  Then you take the pieces bearing flower buds cut them to reasonable lengths, split the base of the twigs an inch or so, and place them in a vase of water. In 5 to 7 days they usually flower. They do best in a cool place. A vase of charming Forsythia sits atop a bookshelf in our kitchen right now. TPP suggests you consider Abeliophyllum as a medium border plant; it handles shade pretty well and is so pretty in the early spring, more delicate and lacy appearing than its yellow cousin.

How unfortunate! Poodle pruning is a no-no.

One of the shrubs that you should never, ever poodle prune is 
Forsythia. When pruned properly Forsythia is an open shrub with some gracefully arching branches with a lacy look in when in flower. Sometimes an unruly shoot does grow straight up, but they are easily removed. When poodled the shrub is an ugly blotch of yellow when in flower and when not in flower it has no saving grace at all. The problem is that

it's actually a fairly large shrub and takes quite a bit of room. The un-poodled shrubs were terribly over grown and cut back severely two years ago. Now they returned to their usual shape and a reasonable size. One problem is that Forsythia branches whose tips touch down can "layer", root down, nice if you want another shrub, but if you let them so spread they will form a thicket. So put away the hedge trimmers, and actually prune your Forsythia, or someone may be saying, "How unfortunate!"

Forcing some spring

It's definitely a late spring here in the upper midwest of the USA.  There isn't much you can do about it, but this may help.  Try forcing some flowering shrubs into bloom.  This time of year it's pretty easy to do because the buds have begun to swell and they're just waiting for a bit of warm weather.  In particular shrubs like forsythia are really, really easy to force into bloom.  Just prune off a few long branches that you probably needed to prune anyways, particularly if you're a terrible poodler of shrubs.  Put them into a big vase and it'll take about a week at household temperatures to get the buds to open.  Other shrubs might take longer, but this will help you get spring going a bit sooner.

A crime against nature! Poodled shrubs!

Plants are sessile, rooted in place, so they have to stand there and take what nature delivers. However, they are not without a response; plants (excepting annuals) are both indeterminate growers and phenotypically plastic. Plants are basically modular and since they have perpetually juvenile tissues, meristems, they continue to grow throughout their lives producing new modules. Phenotypic plasticity refers to their ability to alter their form to best suit the environment they are growing in, so if resources are limited, they may reduce the size of new modules, shorter stems, smaller leaves, and so on. Humans have long been aware of this ability and we have exerted control over plant form for many reasons: to limit size, alter shape, or produce more fruit. Just as strong seaside breezes can gnarl and dwarf trees that would grow straight and tall inland, we turn trees into hedge shrubs. In the most extreme cases full sized trees are dwarfed into aesthetically pleasing miniatures, bonsai trees.
However, many plants have pleasing growth forms, and when humans alter them into highly constrained shapes the result can vary from whimsy in the form of topiary to just plain out ugly. Indeed, the pruning done by your basic gardening dolt produces what can only be termed a crime against nature – poodled trees and shrubs. These are an abomination! Here are two neighbors of mine who have a different takes on Forsythia. The poor poodled shrub isn’t even whimsical unless maybe a number one appears on the side and 14 more such shrubs, of appropriately different colors, are spread around a completely flat and rectangular lawn, and even then you might say, clever, but tasteless.
Poodling may result from the misplaced desire to control and constrain nature, to place everything under our dominion. After all a poodle looks less like a wolf than just about any dog, so we sleep around the campfire a bit easier with such pets. Oh, and one more thing, poodling is never ending futility and work! But some people just cannot let go, cannot allow nature to be nature, or kids to be kids, so one imagines a strong connection between poodling and nagging, both manifestations of exerting control, but the results of both can be equally ugly, but here the Phactor's thoughts begin to stray into more controversial areas and spring is too nice a season, replete as it is with fresh asparagus, to antagonize too many people, and being chased out of town by a mob wielding hedge pruners and torches is truly a scene to be avoided, but it is true that viturally all of these crimes against nature are committed by using hedge pruners, especially those that are powered, and in the hands of the incompetent, they result in butchery. The plant police should take hedge pruners away from such people least they generate more offense to the aesthetically sensitive. Ah, but there are even worse gardening criminals, and shortly we shall expound upon those who remove every thing except grass or pave over gardens.