Ozark Witch Hazel

Size, growth and what to expect

Ozark witch hazel grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It makes a rounded, many-stemmed shrub 6 to 10 feet tall and 8 to 15 feet wide. A young seedling planted in autumn first flowered about 4 years later.

The flowers open on bare branches from January into March, each with four crinkled, ribbon-like petals about a third of an inch long around a red cup. On very cold days the petals roll up, and the bloom lasts three to four weeks. The leaves turn golden yellow in fall. The woody capsules split in September and October and can throw their black seeds up to 30 feet, and turkey and grouse eat them.

It grows wild on the Ozark Plateau of southern Missouri, northern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, with a few records in Texas. Its home is gravel bars and rocky stream banks that flood often, and rarely wooded hillsides.

How to grow Ozark Witch Hazel

Ozark witch hazel flowers best in full sun and grows well in part shade. It likes a moist, rich, acid soil, and it takes clay where the ground drains. It takes flooding well, and it stands a higher soil pH than common witch hazel. Plant it 8 feet from a wall and set plants 8 feet apart for a screen. Its size lets it 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 ring clear of the stems. Sow fresh seed outdoors in early October, a quarter inch deep, and mulch the bed. The warm fall soil and then the winter cold break its dormancy, and seedlings come up in spring. For spring sowing, hold the seed damp in the refrigerator for three months first.

Water weekly through the first summer, and in dry spells after that, since drought scorches the leaves. In the wild deer eat the shoots and rabbits gnaw the bark, so cage young plants for two winters. Prune in spring right after the flowers fade. Cut out suckers unless you want a colony.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female plants to pair. Gnats, midges and flower flies carry the pollen on mild winter days. Gall aphids, caterpillars and leaf spots can mark the leaves, and none of them is serious.