We’ve had a very cold and wet winter in Seattle, so my winter garden clean up chores have been on hold for a while now. My clients and readers know that I encourage everyone to get out and work in the garden in winter. In winter we need to get fresh air. We need the benefit of sunshine whenever we can get it, which is rare in Seattle, which has very short winter days that are often dark grey all day anyway. So, when a warmish, sunny day shows up in late December, I get out and do some work.

Fortunately, it hasn’t been too wet the last couple of days, so my sandy soil was somewhat drained. (Tho its sandy, its augmented with lots of organic matter, so soggy spots do happen.) Knowing I wouldn’t do too much compaction damage on a day like today, I went at the garden with shear vengence. It was a day to cut things back!

I had let my late summer/early fall perennials bloom late into the season, so they were still standing after my earlier fall clean up days. Today, they came down. Monkshood and sunflower stalks taller than me; Anemones and dahlias at eye level; Mums, grasses, asters, phlox, sedums, peonies, fuchsia at knee level; pulstatilla, brunnera and hellebores at ankle height. All fell to my rapid cuts, filling container after container with yard waste. It was wonderful to get all of these cleaned up and ready to go for the rapidly approaching spring season.

I cut down fading hellebore leaves to expose their newly emerging flower heads. Clearing out many others exposed tiny crocus and hyacinth just getting ready to show themselves. Removing spent pulsatilla foliage revealed tight knots of growth pondering their early spring bloom.

Spending time doing these chores goes fast in the winter when so much is bare. What needs to be removed is starkly apparent. Waiting until spring means a confusing mixture of old growth and new, and the work becomes slower and more frustrating and more likely to cause damage to tender new growth. There’s something to be said for winter clean up!

As I worked I found so many beautiful blooming plants in my winter garden. I knew they were there all along; I’d planted them in the first place. But, getting up close & personal for the first good chunk of time since autumn was grounding and rewarding. (Yes, as a professional horticulturist I sometimes refer to my garden relative to the saying “the cobbler’s children have no shoes.”) So, today the cobbler found many sparkling beauties on her children — hellebore flowers just emerging, Sarcococca blooms ready to burst, Daphne opening slowly, one Yuletide Camellia bloom, and a Witch Hazel ready to blaze in yellow winter glory.

Now the Witch Hazel bloom is definitely a subject to discuss. This really is the time of year to buy your Witch Hazels. This is because they can end up hiding their lovely blooms. Mine does this, and it frustrates me to no end. In the autumn as deciduous plants enter dormancy, they release a variety of hormones that do things like send nutrients from leaves into stems (changing leaf color) and do things like cause leaves to fall from branches. Some plants have leaves that turn color but for one reason or other they don’t experience leaf absicion. In other words, their leaves turn brown, but they stay on the plant. My Witch Hazel is one of these “holders-on”. Other plants that do this include some Oaks, Beeches and Maples. (I have a three flower maple that does it as well, but this one doesn’t bother me.)

The annoying thing about the Witch hazel holding its leaves is that they hide the tiny yellow flowers when they emerge in winter. For the past 4 years I’ve found myself out in the garden, carefully cutting away old leaves so I can really enjoy the mid-winter blooms. In 2005, I did this in the middle of an ice storm. My hands were frozen, the ground was frozen and slippery, and the branches were incredibly delicate. In 2006, we had severe winter winds which took out a lot of the leaves. Still, when I returned from a Christmas vacation, I still went out and cut off the remaining leaves. Today, I cut away the leaves again. As I did it, I realized this may be the last year that hand-removal is really feasible. It took me nearly an hour to snip, snip, snip away all of the leaves, being careful not to snip away the flower buds at the same time.

So, buy your witch hazel when it is blooming. Be sure to check to see if the leaves fell off themselves or were hand removed by the nursery. (Yes, I’ve seen this done. All nurseries fluff up plants for the consumer. Of course they do!) Or just know that you too may be out there trimming away leaves mid-winter to enjoy this fabulous plant that I love to see in every garden.

Oh, and if anyone out there has a tip for encouraging a reluctant plant to release its spent leaves, please let me know.