When we were walking around the block yesterday, we notices some witch hazel growing along the other association’s road.
I learned about witch hazel from Lois & Sandy Brown probably thirty years ago. It blooms very late in the year, even after frost, and keeps its flowers through a lot of the winter. Insects have no alternative flowers to pollinate if they come out on a warm day in winter. The flowers are relatively small, not more than an inch across, with spidery yellow petals.
After we saw it yesterday we looked it up on the web and found that it’s very unusual in that it can have flowers, seeds from last year’s flowers, and buds for next year’s flowers on the plant at the same time. We went out again today to look more carefully at it and take pictures, and we were able to find some seed pods:
Here’s another look at the flowers:
Later in the fall I expect to see branches that are bare except for clusters of flowers.
We hadn’t seen any on our property, but when we looked carefully along our driveway, we found several bushes. So I don’t have to find out how to grow the seeds.