Let me count the ways…
1. Your delicate early hints that fall color change is beginning
2. The beauty of the sun shining through your turning leaves
3. The royal carpet you spread on the path beneath you
4. The way your leaves change in stages, so that many colors are present both on each leaf…
5. …and on the tree as a whole
5. The full splendor of your autumn display
6. The number of leaf colors and sizes you provide for my favorite leaf collector
7. The odd little yellow flowers you put out this fall, out of season and not true to your usual color
8. Your lovely upright vase shape, most apparent after the leaves are gone
9. Your flower buds in fall, full of promise against a partly-cloudy sky
and, lastly,
10. Your most marvelous feature, the delicately fragrant, sea anemone-like orange flowers you burst forth with in January, which happened to coincide last year with one of our rare snowy days here in Seattle
This is the best thing by far that we inherited from the previous gardener at our place. He didn’t know the variety, but I am guessing it’s Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena,’ since my plant book says it has coppery orange flowers and that its fall foliage is orange and red. I take my daughter’s picture in front of it every fall at the peak of its color show – I hope to put all the pictures together someday for her so she can see how she and the tree grew. (Many witch hazels stay pretty small, so they are a great choice for a not-too-big garden or a parking strip!)
