Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis)
We are talking about common witch hazel or Hamamelis vernalis, which (there’s another one!) Linnaeus himself named in 1753. Basically, the name means that flowers and fruit can be seen on the plant at the same time. Vernalis means it blooms in the spring, very early spring: February in fact. The witch part is derived from Old English, take your pick of spellings, and means bendable. That flexible quality made it the choice of wood for dowsing. The hazel came from the fact that its leaves resemble those of the hazel tree.
Even if you do not plan to use it to find water, witch hazel has many desirable traits. Witch hazel blooms when everything else is bare and bleak. The strongly scented flowers range in color from yellow to red and the petals roll up in cold weather to avoid freeze damage. Then the new bronzy foliage comes out, changes to a dark green over the summer and in autumn becomes a rich, buttery yellow. The fruit matures in September-October then splits to expel black seeds that birds like.
Witch hazel is a large shrub, growing to around ten feet tall and even wider than that. It likes full sun to part shade, suckers to form colonies, is multi-stemmed, rounded, dense, low maintenance and stems can be cut for forcing indoors. Particularly recommended for rain gardens and mass groupings to form screens. Sounds like another excellent replacement for bush honeysuckle (if you admit to still having some on your property). According to tree sage Michael Dirr, it is “a tough plant with an alley-cat tenacity. Why these plants are not in greater use is beyond me.” So, what are you waiting for? Oh, spring, right….
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