Bigleaf Witch Hazel

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as a medium grower, like our other witch hazels, about a foot and a half a year. It is a colony-forming shrub up to about 16 feet, rarely 20, though regular burning keeps many wild plants a few feet tall. Shallow rhizomes send up sprouts 20 feet or more from the parent, and sprouts only 8 inches tall can flower.

Flowers open from late December into early February. Each has four narrow petals of wine red, scarlet or rose, sometimes tipped yellow, around a glossy scarlet cup. The petals grow from about a quarter inch to over half an inch in their three weeks, and the scent turns from faintly spicy to musty. The leaves turn yellow and then brown, and many hang on until March. The capsules ripen over the summer and split in fall, throwing two glossy black seeds several yards.

Its home is the Gulf coastal plain, on ravine slopes and ridges under pines and hardwoods. Georgia's one known stand grows at the edge of a bay swamp in slash pine woods.

How to grow Bigleaf Witch Hazel

Bigleaf witch hazel grows wild under a canopy of pines and hardwoods, so give it part shade. It likes a moist, loamy soil, and in the wild it also grows on dry ridges. It spreads by shallow rhizomes into a patch, so give it room or pull the sprouts you do not want. Plant it 8 feet from a wall and set plants 8 feet apart. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. No one has tested its seed, so sow it as other witch hazels are sown. Sow fresh seed outdoors in early fall, a quarter inch deep, and mulch the bed over winter. Many seedlings wait until the second spring.

Water weekly through the first summer, and in dry spells after that. Its rhizomes run just beneath the leaf litter, so do not dig or hoe close to the plant. Where deer are common, cage young plants for their first winters.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, but no one has yet studied its pollinators or whether a lone plant sets seed. In the wild it sprouts back vigorously after fire.