February plant of the month, Ozark witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis)
On sunny winter days watch for witch hazel in bloom. The flowers are tiny but are easy to track down by following your nose. Any awake insect, small flies and bees, is also following the sweet aroma to the only flower blooming this time of year. Ozark witch hazel blooms January through April on any sunny day with the same shrub blooming multiple times for months. The long thin yellow petals curl back in on cold days but then reopen when the sun comes out. The seed capsules created from pollinated flowers ripen in fall and explode open, shooting their seeds up to 30 feet. Yellow is also the trees fall color.
Ozark witch hazels like average to well drained soil and can tolerate heavy clay. Moist, acidic, organically rich soils are of preference. It grows in full to partial sun but blooms best with more sun. Watch hazel shrubs can grow to about 10 feet tall and wide. The base tends to send up suckers which can be pruned in spring after flowering to give the shrub a more tree like appearance. This shrub makes a nice living hedge or privacy screen. Including witch hazel in the home landscape is a great way to provide an important energy source to overwintering insects.
Witch hazel has been used for it’s medicinal properties by early native Americans and still is today. Today an extract is used in shaving lotions and ointments for treating bruises sprains and inflammations. To make witch hazel tonics and tinctures at home dry harvested leaves and twigs. The dried bark and leaves are ground up and mixed with water and alcohol to make witch hazel tonic. The tonic can be used externally for bruising, sores and swellings. Check with your doctor before using witch hazel or any medicinal plant because we are all different.
The witch hazel pictured might actually be a non native sold mistakenly as the native. This happens often in the native plant trade and we need to stay open to questioning if our garden plants were correctly identified.
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