Gardeners, please help me!!

Hello. Here’s some links that could be helpful. Hope you identify the problem to reverse your plant issue.

Additionally if the responses and links provided below are not helpful—- a trip to your Cooperative extension with a fresh plant sample might be recommended. Master gardeners at your coop extension are on duty to answer the communities needs. If they cannot determine the problem onsite very often we take plant samples and ship them to the local universities designated for evaluation and disease or insect diagnosis. This could be an option you may wish to consider.

I should add that —sometimes looking at the plant problems with magnification can very much helpful to identify issues. As master gardeners we were provided with an inexpensive jewelers loop. You may want to consider looking at your plant samples with some household magnification for more clues.

https://snippets.com/why-are-my-forsythia-leaves-curling.htm

https://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1174719/#b

I know there is something called Gall Disease on forsythia that causes a brown knotting, but not sure if it affects the leaves. THis link might help, but I'd bring the leaves to a small local nursery and ask. I always find they are most knowledgeable about local plants.

https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/disease-and-pests/forsythia-galls/

Try here

https://extension.psu.edu/forsythia-diseases

Omg!!! I was laughing so much when I just now (when picking up the mail) realized that it wasn't the forsythia AT ALL that had those odd leaves, but another tall tree right close by (that my National Geographic Seek app identified as "sweet birch", if that's now accurate, as I couldn't place a picture on the app of the actual leafy part of the tree itself except from a great distance, and it wasn't clear enough, so I used a picture of the bark itself, and it said immediately "sweet birch"), so anyways, it had been that all along, aaarrghh!! Bahahaha! And everybody like wow, thats odd. I'm sooo sorry for wasting your time, it sure wasn't intentional! ❤ and I also noticed that the leaves aren't actually even the same shape as forsythia's leaves, so when a person like me who's not particularly good at recognizing plants gets it wrong, I understand, but YOU!!?? 😜😄🤣 That gives me hope, kinda... 😀😜 Now, the issue still remains though, what am I gonna do about this sweet birch oddity? No bugs are seen on the bark itself, and it looks like only the lower branches of the tree has started dropping leaves (landing right on the forsythia area, that's why I thought initially those were forsythia leaves). I like that tree and wouldn't like to lose it, so help! Nah, mayday!

THAT TOO SAY

here is info for you

https://gardenerspath.com/plants/ornamentals/grow-forsythia/

you did not give some water

The growth you're describing could be a type of gall, possibly caused by an insect or disease. Galls are abnormal growths that can occur on leaves or stems, often as a plant's response to some kind of irritation or invasion.

Since you didn't spot any bugs, it might be a disease causing this. Your approach of pruning the affected branches was a good start. Keep an eye on the plant's overall health and maybe consider a fungicide or insecticide treatment, but do so cautiously and as a last resort. For more detailed advice, I'd recommend checking out articles by Henry Morgan. He's got a ton of great gardening insights and might have tackled something similar. His practical tips and clear explanations could be really helpful in figuring out what's happening with your forsythias and how to treat it.

If you are in the U.S. you can contact your County Extension Agent. They can give you some pointers of what the problem is and how to resolve it if possible.