Strange happenings in the garden

Early blooms

One of the guys on one of the gardening communities on g+ popped up a pic and stated how he loves this time of year because his Witch Hazel blooms. This statement made me stop and wonder what was going on here. All of my witch hazel has always bloomed late in winter, usually late February to early March. He is in Georgia, I'm in Virginia. We're not that far from each other. So what gives?

Then, late yesterday I was walking around my gardens and I see this! (see image above) What is going on here? they have never bloomed like this before. Then I started thinking... and we all know what that means. Well, my wife always says, "uh oh". Maybe this is the harbinger of things to come. They have already said we are in for a bad winter. Who "they" are is anyone's guess, but I'm thinking it's those prognosticators over at the Farmers Almanac.

Are the plants trying to get everything in before "the end". Do they know something we don't know? So I dig a little deeper. While we have three different varieties of witch hazel, there are tens of dozens of varieties though. After some research, there are a few varieties that actually bloom twice in a year, fall and very early spring.

Hamamelis 'Diane', with dark orange blossoms

Hamamelis 'Jelena', with orange blossoms

Sometimes bloom time depends on the age of a plant, as does growth rate. Our Ginkgo seems like it is taking for ever to get big enough for shade, but all of the ratings I've read say it is fast to moderate. So we'll wait and see on that one. So maybe the double bloom-ability on this Hamamelis just needed a few years to get there.

I also found out why they are so expensive when you do wish to purchase a new variety. They are all from grafted plants. Plants from seeds or cuttings tend to be less expensive, due to less work involved.

The large specimens in Washington DC all seem to bloom in February also, last time we were up there, and they all seemed to yellow. If you are into plants, Washington DC will keep you on your toes. Many were planted decades ago and will be very large.

In other news from our habitat, we had our first snow of the season, which is very early for us. Okay, okay, it was only flurries, but it sure did come down for a bit. The bird feeder was a very busy area of the yard as I added a suet cage with suet/nuts onto the side of it. It seems to be quite popular. We have quite a few woodpeckers/sapsuckers around here, including Pileated, Red-Bellied, Red Headed, Hairy, Downy, and the Common Flicker. I noticed that the Titmouse and Blue Jay also fed from it.