Winterhazel is in Bloom

Glorious Corylopsis! (Corylopsis glabrescens)


Winterhazel
It is one of spring's earliest bloomers and it can't arrive too soon! Its buttery yellow blossoms dangle so gracefully from its rising branch. I photograph it anew every season, so welcomed is its harbinger. The elevated and graceful bloom bears witness both to the astonishing beauty that arises from the earth! But also to its fragility. The bloom lasts only for about a week. Maybe that is why I photograph it every year: Part of me wants to cling to its ongoing bloom.

Helpful Info:

Habitat: native to Japan. Hardy to zone 5
Habit and Form: a deciduous shrub 8' to 15' tall with equal width; multistemmed, slow growth rate, medium texture
Foliage: alternate, simple, deciduous leaves, ovate leaf shape 2" to 4" in length dark green leaf color
Flowers: yellow flowers fragrant 1" long racemes flowers early Spring
Bark: brown, slender stems, zigzag stem pattern, lenticels
Landscape Use: early flowers, for fragrance, massing or grouping, border
Liabilities: late frost can kill flower buds
ID Features: a deciduous shrub, large, greenish-brown, sessile buds, zigzag stem pattern, yellow, fragrant flowers, alternate leaf arrangement, cordate leaf base

Spring Comes Slowly

Finally! After many false starts, this weekend the weather turned enough to feel as if I could uncover my wintered troughs, pull them from the soil in which they had been safely heeled in for the winter, and begin to watch them do their magic. I bid them goodnight for the long winter's sleep last November. They been sleeping for six long months.

It felt a little like Christmas to pull them from their sleep and see how they did all winter. They look good, albeit a little undone. Now the strengthening sunshine will do its work and I can't wait to see those (now) hidden roots pop through with a new season's bloom.