Witch Hazel
Add Witch Hazel to Your Garden for Healing and Winter Interest!
Witch hazel鈥檚 yellow-to-orange-red flowers add a slash of color to drab winter landscapes. Learn more about this wonderfully hardy, fragrant plant with therapeutic qualities. It tells us that spring is around the corner!
About Witch Hazel
The witch hazel plant, also called winterbloom, is a large native flowering shrub or small tree with dazzling clear yellow flowers that bloom in late fall or winter (depending on the variety)鈥攁dding color and fragrance during a time when much of Earth is dormant.
For much of the year, witch hazel is a shrub that grows mostly unnoticed along shaded stream banks and in damp woods from Georgia to southern Canada. Its light gray bark and rounded green leaves blend in well with its surroundings. But when witch hazel blossoms, the fragrant, tasseled yellow blossoms often appear against a background of early snow.
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The botanical name, Hamamelis, translates to 鈥渢ogether with fruit,鈥 which refers to the fact that the fruit and flowers simultaneously occur on the same plant. This is a very unique feature of native North American trees. As the shrub blooms, its previous year鈥檚 fruit matures. The seed capsules explode with an audible pop, shooting their two hard, shiny black seeds several yards from the parent plant.
Witch hazel not only pops with color, but also blooms with a wonderfully spicy fragrance. They鈥檙e very hardy and are not prone to a lot of diseases.
Why Is it Called Witch Hazel?
The plant鈥檚 name does not refer to witchcraft, but comes from the Middle English word wych or wyche, meaning pliant or flexible, which refers to the plant鈥檚 very flexible branches. The 鈥渉azel鈥 in the name comes from the plant鈥檚 similarity to the common hazelnut.
Planting Witch Hazel in the Garden
If for no other reason than its time of winter bloom, witch hazel is a valuable landscaping plant鈥攂ut it鈥檚 also attractive in the spring and summer with its dark green leaves and graceful, spreading vase shape. Often, it鈥檚 used as a large border shrub, thriving under the canopy of larger trees. Plants are typically upright-spreading and rather loosely branched. The somewhat zigzagging branches offer interesting forms, and their upright nature allows under-planting with bulbs or small perennials.
There are a couple of popular species native to North America (H. virginiana, H. vernalis) and non-natives from Asia.
- The common witch hazel (H. virginiana) is noted for its good fall color, which is usually bright yellow, blooming from October to December.
- The vernal witch hazel (H. vernalis) is similar to the common witch hazel except that its features are generally smaller. The most significant difference between these native species is flowering time, which is usually late winter/early spring.
Choose its planting site carefully, because common witch hazel (H. virginiana) can grow 25 feet tall and just as wide. Vernal witch hazel (H. vernalis) is generally of smaller stature, maturing at a height of 6 to 10 feet. Witch hazels can be kept smaller with pruning once they are finished blooming. However, they really do best in large planting areas for average growth. With their shallow, slow-growing root systems, you should have plenty of room.
Being shade tolerant, witch hazel is often used for naturalizing wooded areas. However, these plants perform best in full sun (or, filtered shade in hot zones) and develop brighter fall foliage when planted in the open.
They prefer moist, well-amended, well-drained soil and regular water, and are tolerant of both acid or alkaline conditions. Its extreme cold hardiness and resistance to insects and disease make witch hazel a good choice for an easy-care planting. They are moderately resistant to drought once established.
Witch Hazel doesn鈥檛 require pruning. Due to their spreading growth habit, however, they may need to be occasionally pruned to maintain an upright form, or to allow for clearance beneath the canopy. The common witch hazel (H. virginiana) is especially prone to suckering as it colonizes, and these suckers should be removed to maintain a tidy appearance if so desired.
Learn more about shrubs for fall landscaping.
Witch Hazel as a Natural Remedy
Native Americans used the plant鈥檚 springy wood to make bows. The shrub is also valued for its medicinal qualities: the astringent leaves and bark were used to control bleeding and take the sting out of insect bites. A tea could also be made from witch hazel, working as a mild sedative.
Today, witch hazel is still used as an astringent for treating skin inflammations and irritations; the plant contains tannins that help decrease swelling and fight bacteria. In fact, it is one of the very few American medicinal plants approved as an ingredient in non-prescription drugs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The witch hazel that we find in the medicine cabinet today is made by distilling the bark of twigs and roots with alcohol, which creates a soothing lotion that reduces swelling and relieves aching joints. More than a million gallons of witch hazel are sold yearly in the United States, making it one of the most popular natural remedies.
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My Jalena is doing really well its 3rd year and has blooms all over it this February in SC. My problem is that last summer's leaves are ALL hanging on to the branches hiding the blooms. They are ugly brown. Not good for me. Is there anything I can do besides pick off each leaf. They are hanging on strong.
The effect that you describe is called leaf marcescence; it鈥檚 the trait of deciduous and refers to retaining plant parts after they (the parts) are dead and dry. It鈥檚 not clear why some trees and shrubs do this. Normally, the leaves come 鈥渦nglued鈥 (not the technical term) and fall off in autumn. Sometimes an early cold spell may interrupt the leaf drop. Reduced sunlight might inhibit it, causing leaves to remain attached. There are other possibilies, but know that when new growth appears in spring, it will release the leaves and you will forget it ever happened.
I had 3 witch hazel bushes put in last year and they are not doing well. They haven鈥檛 produced much foliage and now that it is fall I have no blossoms. They have not grown in height either. Could it be the clay soil?
Are you in the US? I'm curious of what state, because I live in SC, and we have clay-ish type soil too.
It’s hard to say for sure why they’re not doing well, as there are a lot of things that factor in to a plant’s success in the garden. Clay soil could certainly be a culprit, however. Witch hazel prefers to grow in rich, moist soil in partial shade, but clay soil may be a step too far in the 鈥渃ompacted鈥 direction.
Another factor could be the pH of the soil. Witch hazel grows best in slightly acidic soils, so if yours leans more towards basic, it could be prohibiting proper growth.
We would recommend doing a soil test through your state’s cooperative extension, which will tell you what kind of soil you have already and what’s missing. They may also be able to give you more advice for getting your witch hazel back on track!
My dog has a rash on his abdomen and on the area between his legs. I have discussed this with 3 Vets and none of them seems interested! The rash gets worse at times, and then sometimes almost goes away. The dog licks at it so it must be bothering him some. I have used Witch Hazel myself for years, and wondered if it would hurt to use it on the dog to try to relieve the condition. I would appreciate your reply. Thanks in advance.
I have used witch hazel for hemorrhoids. The doctors medicine was not reducing the swelling and he was talking about surgery. I looked in an old medical book I had and they talked about using witch hazel. After using it for 3 days they had shrunk by more than half. It made me a believer.
This is interesting;
What attracted the attention of witch hazel as an herbal product was a patent medicine developed in the mid 1800s. In the 1840's, Theron T. Pond of Utica, New York established an association with the Oneida Indians of the state. He learned from a medicine man that they held a shrub in high esteem for all types of burns, + boils. It was witch hazel. Pond learned as much as he could of the extract, and finally after several years, in 1848, Mr. Pond and the Medicine Man decided to market the extract, under the trade name "Golden Treasure". After several moves and sales of the company, a manufacturing facility was established in Connecticut, and after the death of Theron Pond, the name of the witch hazel preparation was changed to "Pond's Extract".
Witch Hazel Today
The witch hazel industry is still centered in Connecticut with the E. E. Dickinson Co., the T. N. Dickinson Co., and the American Distilling and Manufacturing Co., producing most of the witch hazel extract sold on the American market. Much of the harvest still comes from the woods of northwestern Connecticut, where landowners contract directly with the manufaturers. Harvest begins in the autumn. Branches are cut to the ground, but resprout, producing a new harvest in a few years. Portable chippers allow for on site processing. It is then taken to the factories for distillation in stainless-steel vats. The witch hazel is steam distilled for thirty-six hours, then re-heated, condensed and filtered.
