Witch Hazel 'Ruby Glow' (Hamamelis x intermedia)

Witch Hazel 'Ruby Glow'
Hamamelis x intermedia

VanDusen Botanical Gardens - Vancouver, B.C. Canada

Nice witch hazel. Is it currently in bloom there?

Yes it is. My pics didn't capture the colour as well as I'd hoped. I'd have preferred to have taken a close up.

I have some hamamelis trees on my property, probably virginiana, but have only once been in the right place at the right time to catch one in bloom. When I saw the blooms it was November and I was hard at work hauling a big rock up a hillside and had a quick look and then months of wondering before I was able to figure out what it was. The little fringe blooms are so unusual, I plan to get one, maybe Arnold, when I can figure out where to put it. I had no idea that they would grow in the Vancouver climate.

They seem to really like our climate. Sometimes the blooms get a bit wet. We are just cold enough for them. There's some discussions in the "Trees & Shrubs" forum on them - take a look and ask what everyone thinks about the different cultivars.

The attraction is the bloom time when nothing much else is blooming, and who can resist wilted pompoms? I need to find one that will stay tiny and not to shade its neighbors.

There are other winter attraction things, some of which I'm not sure you can grow. ie. Callicarpa, Garrya elliptica 'James Roof', Viburnum x bodantense 'Dawn' and maybe an early Forsythia. I'm sure someone a bit better versed on the Hamamelis can answer your specifics with a plant over in the Trees & Shrubs forum, than I.

Looks like the callicarpa and viburnum dawn are ok for this zone and I'd love to add them along with a hamamelis. I suspect that the forsythia is hardy as I have one. The callicarpa pictures I saw displayed wonderful berries. Are the blossoms are pretty?

I'd like to reduce some of the large trees that are dumping vast quantities of leaves on my gardens that need to be cleaned up in the fall and replace them with smaller ornamental trees where the cleanup would be justified by the blossoms and would be shading their neighbors less. I just have so many things to do that I haven't spent much time with a chainsaw this past year. This time of year is usually a good time to cut trees (what else can be done?), but it is bitterly cold out now.

I can only recommend strategically cutting trees and be very selective as they provide shade, wind protection and maintain an overall canopy to more tender plants. There is a current threat in "Trees & Shrubs" about a neighbour of another member who cut all the trees and how it affected everyone. The large trees may also nurture your newer trees by providing protection until they are large enough.

Which trees are you thinking about removing? Also too, is there any particular reason why you remove leaves? I used to religiously remove leaves because everybody else did and I figured that's what homeowners did until I realized the leaves were a major asset. At least to me they were. We have a mulching lawn mover now and a leaf blower to rid us of leaves in areas that are show type islands and such but the rest we leave be to help create biomass for the soil as well as to insulate plantings from rapid freeze thaw cycles. The other deal is that I find the species of plants that grow in woodlands to be extremely attractive. I could never grow many of the spring ephemerals I now enjoy if my large canopy trees were removed. Just another perspective.

I live surrounded by at least a thousand acres of forest and have only partially cleared about 1 1/2 acre of the 20 I have so I suspect it won't create much of a disaster if I cut down a couple more trees, but guilt has held me back thus far so I have far more shade than is good to garden in.

Hum, I really have alot of trees. The large oak leaves seem to smother the plants and grass. A few wouldn't be bad, but the volume is huge and the leaves of oaks are lost slowly meaning that my fall is devoted to chasing them down. They get shredded and put into the compost pile. I long for sunshine and more pine needles or smaller leaves.

I guess that it's pretty hard to imagine from other areas of the country, but there aren't neighbors like in most places. There are 2 houses about 1/4 mile away and another about 1/2 mile away, then 3 houses at about 1mile and in between there are the trees, alot of them. Even if I had thoughts about completely clearing my land, which I don't, it would take me several years. I would like to take down a few oak and poplar trees around the house and replace them with ornamental trees.

If you had some pics and a list of the trees you'd like to remove, I'm sure a few of us can help selectively log the yard. I, myself, am not fond of poplars and think they are better suited to background native plants.

There is not much need for a list, maybe 2 or three trees I have in mind, so I'm not sure I need as much help selecting the trees as starting the chainsaw. Any volunteers?

The poplars do produce a nice dappled shade, but they drop branches with every storm. That makes for more un-popular pick-up. They were here when I bought the land and I left them. There's one that's dead and I want to get that down if I can do so without getting it caught in the adjacent trees or crushing the 20,000 volt transformer that's a few feet away.