Witch Hazel

Size, growth and what to expect

Witch hazel flowers in late fall, from October into December, with fragrant yellow blooms of four crinkled, ribbon-like petals a half to three quarters of an inch long. It grows at a medium pace, roughly a foot and a half a year in its youth on an average site, which is the rate our growth estimator uses for it. Plan on a dense, multi-stemmed clump 12 to 20 feet tall and 15 to 20 feet wide, though wild plants commonly run 15 to 25 feet. Seedlings do not flower until they are at least 6 years old.

The woody capsules ripen the next fall and burst to fling two shiny black seeds 10 to 20 feet, rarely 40. Grouse, bobwhite, pheasant and turkeys eat the seed, and deer browse the leaves. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon wych, to bend, because settlers cut dowsing rods from its forked branches.

It grows wild from Nova Scotia and the Great Lakes south to the Florida panhandle and east Texas, most abundant in moist woods and bottoms, where it sometimes forms a solid understory.

How to grow Witch Hazel

Witch hazel is at home under taller trees but takes anything from deep shade to full sun in ordinary drained soil; more sun gives a fuller plant and heavier bloom. It grows nearly as wide as it is tall, so allow 10 feet from a building and between plants.

Plant bare-root or potted plants while dormant, in a hole twice the root width and no deeper, crown at the soil line, native soil back in, mulch off the stems. Seed needs a warm summer and then a cold winter before it sprouts: sow it outdoors in fall an inch deep, screen the bed from mice and expect seedlings the second spring.

Water it weekly through the first summer. Deer browse witch hazel and rabbits nip stems, so cage it for two or three years. It needs no pruning; shape it, if at all, in early spring after the flowers fade, since next fall's buds form in summer.

Witch hazel sets little or no seed with its own pollen, so plant two or more seedlings from different parents. Even in wild stands, fewer than one flower in a hundred sets fruit. New plants settle in slowly and may add little for a year or two. The November flowers are easy to miss when the leaves hang on around them. Cone galls on the leaves and spiny galls on twigs come from aphids and are harmless.