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David: Hi I am David Epstein and welcome to Growing Wisdom, and if you live in zones five or warmer and early in the spring you might noticed something blooming in your neighbor’s yard, you might have think, “Why is that blooming so early?” chances are it is a Witch-Hazel. I am here with Wayne Mezitt today from Weston Nurseries. Wayne, you grow many of these in your own yard, and they spectacularly smell great, I love them. Tell me a little bit about how these originated, and why it blooms so early.
Wayne: Well, these are the hybrid Witch-Hazels that bloom in the spring. The native one for region blooms in the fall, but all Witch-Hazels have the same characteristic of opening their flowers when the temperatures get warm above freezing basically, and then closing them up when the temperature gets cold at night.
In essence, they stay in bloom for three, four, five, eight weeks. And, people think other plant this spectacular is a Forsythia, which of course, will not start blooming until these are pretty much done blooming.
David: How big will this get?
Wayne: They will get, 10, 12, maybe 15 feet tall. And, you can see on this one, you can see where I cut it back last year. I cut a four-inch diameter stem back. It re-grew and as you can see, it is flowering just fine.
And, if we want to keep this small, especially on one that is bigger than this, we should cut it back every year, or two.
David: And when you cut this back, could you cut it back while it is blooming and bring some of these inside?
Wayne: That is the perfect time to do it. Because, these will hold up for several days in the house if the house is cold it will hold up for a week or so.
David: And what are some of the different varieties, this one you said was what variety are we looking at?
Wayne: This is Sunburst, very similar to Pallida and Arnold’s Promise and the other yellow ones, some are orange and then there is also some that are close to red, they are reddish orange.
David: What would be a red type point?
Wayne: The red ones are Diane is probably one of the best because it got the large flowers. There is Hilton Berry, which is another one that is not as common in the market, but they make quite a contrast when you get three or four of them in your yard.
David: And where would you suggest people plant this? What type of environment do they like?
Wayne: You can see this is on the edge of the woods and they really like to have enough sun, because in the shade they do not set the flower buds, as well.
David: Just absolutely spectacular. Thanks for introducing this to us. Well, I hope you have enjoyed your Witch-Hazel tour or Hamamelis if you like Latin, and we hope you will come back every week for all of our hints, tips, and helps here at growingwisdom.com.
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