Native Notes: Witch Hazel 



(Hamamelis virginiana) 



NANCY SURETTE 



The winter always give me pause. What native plant would be interesting in this time of year? If I move 

 my thoughts away from perennials, I can come up with a large list of trees and shrubs. It was I was 

 thinking along those lines that I remembered the excitement of seeing a tree that was flowering in the 

 woods in winter. 



The common witch hazel is a familiar understory plant in New Hampshire. In our town, we have so many 

 plants that, one hundred years ago, there used to be a witch hazel factory here making the medical astringent 

 still sold today. (The extract witchhazel is distilled from the bark of the young stems and roots.) 



An extremely hardy tree, the buds are naked, with none of the outer protection that most other plants give, and 

 the fruit capsule has the bad manners to spit its seeds (called "dehiscing") all over the place a year after flowering. 



Be that as it may, the witch hazel is forgiven when the yellow fragrant flowers made up of four strap-like 

 crumpled petals appear from mid-October until as late as early December. The show can last from two to four 

 weeks and is quite startling as the yellow flowers dance above the snow. Even the fall foliage is spectacular, 

 with a wave of lemon yellow leaves creating a background canvas in the woodland understory. 



This native shrub — or small tree — can grow to twenty-five 

 ■ feet with a twenty-to-twenty-five-foot spread. It's best left: in a natural 

 state and will live in either sun or shade. It will tolerate dry condi- 

 tions, but prefers moist soil. There are no serious diseases or insect prob- 

 lems, although, as Dirr says, "when planted near birches, a peculiar insect 

 makes small galls on the underside of the foliage, like hackberry nipple gall." 

 There are a number of non-native varieties that can keep your garden 

 flowering through much of late winter as well. The Chinese witch hazel {Hamamelis 

 mollis) has a spectacular yeliow-to-orange fall leaf color followed by a February or 

 March flower — surely the first sign of spring. 



'Arnold Promise,' a hybrid between H. japonica x H. mollis, is the cul- 

 tivar I like best for the home landscape. Introduced by the Arnold Arbore- 

 tum, this shrub has clear yellow flowers with reddish calyx cups. 

 Its flowers are fragrant and appear from late February to late 

 March. Smaller than the native, this shrub's mature height is 

 twenty feet. Fortunately, most nurseries that stock witch hazel 

 stock this ciJtivar, so it's not terribly difficult to find. 



The purist would say that I'm mixing my natives with 



introduced cultivars. This is true, but using both varieties of 



witch hazel appropriately by naturalizing with the native and al- 



lowmg "Arnold Primrose" an ornamental spot on the lawn creates a 



flowering landscape for most of the winter. And in New Hampshire, 



that's something worth thinking about. 



Nancy Surette lives in Windham, New Hampshire, with her 

 husband. She owns Seedling-Naturescapes, a landscape design ser- 

 vice. For information about this service, she can be reached at 

 605-89^-7904. 



