Hamamelis - Part Four

Before I get started on today's pictures, two 'housekeeping' types of things. First, my apologies for not writing for the past few days. Blogger was being a problem. Never sure if it is just Blogger, or my slow dial-up connection, or my computer, or the weather , or ... But I'm glad I don't depend on Blogger for making a living or any sort of life and death types of stuff.
Sylvia said it was hard to find Hamamelis in the UK for reasonable prices. My husband had 2 favorite sites he shared with me which I'll share with you along with his comments copied from his email to me.
http://www.bluebellnursery.co.uk/cgi-bin/catalogue.cgi?cat=t&genus=Hamamelis&initial=H RETAIL SITE...GOOD PRICES AND SELECTION...TOURS AT ONSITE GARDEN CENTRE IN LEICESTERSHIRE
http://www.witchhazelnursery.com/PHOTO%20LIBRARY.htm CHRIS LANE'S SITE...WHOLESALE ONLY, BUT PICS ARE DEFINING...HE HAS SPRING TOURS AT THE NURSERY LOCATED IN KENT
Anyway, back to plant pictures. This first one is Kohanke's Purple. It is very close in appearance to the second picture which is Kohanke's Red. Sometimes you can't tell them apart and sometimes the red is more purple and the purple more red. They are growing about 10 yards apart so it's easy to compare - and get confused. Glad I have tags at the base of the plants or I might never be sure which one is which.


This next one is a relatively new one in our garden, Livia. It varies from a pretty bright red to this muted, almost raspberry color. It seems to be growing fast and turning into a nice bush.

Moonlight is usually the first to bloom in the garden. I though for awhile it was because it was in full sun along the driveway, but then I realized that we had another on in almost full shade over in the Japanese Garden, so I think it is just an early bloomer, no matter where it is planted. I love the very long, thin petals and the color just glows. About things blooming at the same time. I've noticed that with daylilies, we often have several clumps of the same variety planted in different parts of the garden. No matter what the sun conditions, they will open their first flower of the season on the same day.

Last for today is Orange Beauty which has even thinner petals than Moonlight. It is usually more orange than this and kind of reminds you of grated orange peel, sort of krinkly rather than all smooth. Pretty plant. I like on the lighter colored ones how the red in the centers shows. Of course it's there on the darker ones, but the contrast isn't there to make it stand out.

During my absence we have had really freaky weather including temperatures up to almost 60 and as low as 15, rain, snow, a thunderstorm and an inch of hail. All that in just 3 days. One thing for sure, it's never boring around here.

Jane