Ruud Kleinpaste: Witch Hazel - pretty plants that flower right through winter

Author: Ruud Kleinpaste ,
Publish Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2026, 12:14pm

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We were going for a lovely walk through the town of Lincoln and came across the Lincoln Envirotown Community Gardens. Locally maintained by enthusiasts, growing all sorts of edibles – nicely done!

But that wasn’t really what surprised us most: Julie discovered a series of flowering Hamamelis with a lovely range of coloured flowers.

No doubt these shrubs had been planted quite some time ago (many decades), but they were flowering in the middle of winter… and smelling pretty darn good too!

There are quite a few Hamamelis species (more than I expected); the most common species come from the USA, Japan, and China, but within the gardening industry it’s becoming quite obvious that many growers are working with hybrids in all sorts of colours, shapes, and sizes. There must be dozens of varieties.

A great old name for these plants is ‘Witch Hazel’. ‘Witch’, derived from the Old English word wice or wych, meaning ‘pliant’, ‘bendable’, or ‘to bend’. It’s not just flexible branches, but also the shape of the leaves – many leaves keep hanging around the developing flowers.

Hamamelis virginiana is often used as a skin toner, getting rid of pain and swellings, as well as itching and allergic troubles. No doubt something from the old days…

Many Hamamelis cultivars can be pruned nicely: it keeps the flowering ends on the top.

Some of the cultivars are literally grafted on the parent rootstock; in itself not a problem, but rootstock is often much faster growing than the cultivars and often you end up with two colours on one tree.

The best way to avoid that is by checking, finding, and pruning the rootstock where it comes up from the “grafting point” point almost right at the bottom. You can pick it easily – a larger and thicker stem that just looks like rootstock, exactly where it was grafted.