{"id":755,"date":"2015-11-01T16:09:19","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T16:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/?p=755"},"modified":"2015-11-01T16:09:19","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T16:09:19","slug":"witch-hazel-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/01\/witch-hazel-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Witch Hazel Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>Sometimes your garden makes you feel pretty stupid. \u00a0Nature is a bit that way, anyway\u2013so perfectly designed that humility is the best attribute of any gardener.\n

Many years ago, I purchased a young witch hazel tree (Hamamelis hybrid) from Sky nursery in Shoreline\u2013the tag is long since gone. \u00a0The tree already had a few flowers at four feet tall, so I knew it was a bright yellow one. \u00a0I planted it near the street and looked forward to its fast growth and lovely flowers in the late winter.<\/p>\n

The sad reality is that the tree grew very slowly and only seemed to bloom rarely. \u00a0I would check it in the late winter and see no sign of flowers, save for maybe a few here or there. \u00a0I kept telling myself it just wasn\u2019t mature enough.<\/p>\n

Well, low and behold, as I perused the garden last week, what did I see in full bloom!? \u00a0My witch hazel!<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04792\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

So, the stupid part is that this tree has likely been blooming wonderfully every year, and I just never noticed because I was looking for flowers in January instead of November! \u00a0How sad that I missed it all this time!<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04790\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

It is tough to photograph, as the higher branches have wires above them that ruin the shots, but you get a feel for what this 15 foot teenage tree looks like right now.<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04795\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

There are a lot of flowers. \u00a0I am unable to smell them, though, but I\u2019m pretty much nose-blind. \u00a0I\u2019ll have to have someone else try.<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04789\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Other November 1st (we should call it November Day, the opposite of May day) beauty nearby in the garden include the few remaining leaves of the Aronia:<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04788\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

This is nearly an all-season shrub, with nice white flowers in spring, tasty berries in summer and blazing leaves in autumn.<\/p>\n

The Asian pear espalier also has some impressive color:<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04797\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

$\"DSC04798\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

One late dahlia that had wintered over in the driveway bed finally is blooming. \u00a0I don\u2019t know why the dahlias in that particular bed get such a late start, but they always do. \u00a0And the blooms don\u2019t survive well in the weather and with the desperate, hungry bugs.<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04796\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

The last views below are of Hakone grass that we have in a pot near the front porch. \u00a0This grass never fails to please, and it is blooming now, which you can barely make out if you look closely.<\/p>\n

$\"DSC04799\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

$\"DSC04800\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to go out and look around some more to see what else I might have been missing all this time!<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes your garden makes you feel pretty stupid. \u00a0Nature is a bit that way, anyway\u2013so perfectly designed that humility is the best attribute of any gardener. Many years ago, I purchased a young witch hazel tree (Hamamelis hybrid) from Sky nursery in Shoreline\u2013the tag is long since gone. \u00a0The tree already had a few flowers … Continue reading Witch Hazel Surprise<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}