Red witchhazel

In the wild—well, semi-wild... this is Connecticut, after all—the first flower to bloom is the Skunk Cabbage. But not long after it starts its furnace, there are other plants, many of them in my garden, to watch for signs of blossoms. The Red-flowered Witch Hazel is one of them, and a couple of days ago, I started noticing that it was getting ready to put on a show. Our northeast native, Hamamelis viriginiana, blooms in the autumn, and there's a spring bloomer, Hamamelis vernalis, that is native to the Southeast. This stunner, known in the gardening trade as "Ruby Glow," is a hybrid of two non-native witch hazels. Our little shrub, even though the temperature is in the single digits, just started to unfurl its curious and brilliant crepe-paper petals. It always lives up to its name.