A Reliable Bloomer in the Winter Landscape
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- February
- 25
In warm winters, witch hazel really will bloom in January. Many serious gardeners I know say they would never have a garden without it.
Even in cold, snowy winters, witch hazel can be counted on for blooms by mid-February or early March.
This common shrub with wispy spidery flowers in a range of citrus colors from yellow to apricot-red often grows to the height of a small tree.
Here’s one I shot at the NY Botanical Garden a couple of weeks ago.
This one seems to have held onto its leaves.
Aren’t the flowers wonderful?
Known botanically as Hamamelis, witch hazel doesn’t like a windy site, but it tolerates a wide range of light conditions. Like flowering dogwoods, these versatile deer-resistant shrubs make a good understory plant near oaks, beeches, pines and maples. They also do well along a stream or around the edges of woodland sites.
In a suburban yard, plant them where you can see them up close, perhaps near the garage or outside the back door.
Here’s another variety, ‘Barmstedt Gold,’ also at NYBG, in the home gardening area.
After the blooms fade in spring, interesting 3- to 4-inch green leaves with scalloped edges emerge all along the brownish-gray branches. In fall, they turn a gorgeous yellow that lights up the landscape.
Plant them in rich organic soil and keep them well watered the first year or two. In general, they don’t need much pruning.
Witch hazel looks particularly good with early-blooming bulbs such as snowdrops, winter aconite and crocus.
This entry was posted
on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 8:32 am by Bill Cary.
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Bill Cary grew up in Louisville, Ky. His gardening was limited to growing parsley and impatiens on the windowsill of Manhattan walkups until the mid-1990s when he bought a rundown old chicken farm on 8 acres in the Hudson Valley. Now he spends his weekends chasing deer, hacking away at invasive shrubs and vines and wondering why he doesn`t have more meadow and less lawn.
