Did you notice that the big wreath on the South Street side of the house has changed? Our theme for the next few weeks will be late winter / early spring bloomers. The wreath features mock winter jasmine.
Witch Hazel is the star of the show right now. One of the only bushes blooming in these lingering days of winter. You can find a blog post from last year by head garden tender Andrew Hatcher about this intrepid flower on our website here.
The narrow-petaled tiny crimson flower of the Ozark witch hazel near the northeast back corner of the Loring Greenough garden “lights the sear deadness with its living red” in February and March, at a time when “the wood is silent as an unswept lute; color and song have fled.”
These lines are reapplied to the Ozark from the 1894 poem “Witch Hazel” by Elizabeth Akers Allen, who was born in Strong, Maine in 1832.
Allen’s poem is actually about the yellow flowered common witch hazel. The Loring Greenough garden also has a very similar looking hybrid witch hazel developed at the Arboretum in a place where it is far more visible than our shy Ozark witch hazel, whose beauty is best seen in close-ups. This lemon-colored shrub, also in full bloom in February and March, is right at the South Street fence near Greenough Avenue.
If you have a minute, and are craving a spring preview, swing by the Lawn to get a glimpse of the Hazels’ fleeting beauty.
Elizabeth Akers (1832-1911)
“Witch Hazel” by Elizabeth Akers (1832-1911)
The last lone aster in the wood has died
And taken wings, and flown;
The sighing oaks, the evergreens’ dark pride,
And shivering beeches, keep their leaves alone.From the chill breath of late October’s blast
That all the foliage seared,
Even the loyal gentian shrank at last,
And, gathering up her fringes, disappeared.The wood is silent as an unswept lute;
Color and song have fled;
Only the brave black-alder’s brilliant fruit
Lights the sear deadness with its living red.But what is this wild fragrance that pervades
The air like incense-smoke?
Pungent as spices blown in tropic shades,
Subtle as some enchanter might evoke.Not like the scent of flower, nor drug, nor balm,
Nor resins from the East,
Yet trancing soul and sense in such a charm
As holds us when the thrush’s song has ceased.Mysterious, gradual, like the gathering dews,
And damp, sweet scents of nights,
Whence is this strange aroma that imbues
The lone and leafless wood with new delight?And while the questioner drinks, with parted lips,
The mystical draught – behold!
A wondrous bush, beplumed from root to tips
With crimped and curling bloom of shredded gold!Not even the smallest leaf or hint of green
Is mingled with its sprays,
But every slender stem and twig is seen
Haloed with flickerings of yellow blaze.What wizard, wise in spells of drugs and gums,
With weird divining-rod
Conjures this luminous loveliness that comes
As if by magic from the frozen sod?Fearless which-hazel! braver than the oak
That dares not bloom till spring,
Thus to defy the frot’s benumbing stroke
With challenge of November blossoming!And yet it has an airy, delicate grace
Denied all other flowers,
And lights the gloom as some beloved face
Dawns on the dark of melancholy hours.Miraculous shrub, that thus in frost and blight
Smilest all undismayed,
And scatterest from thy wands of golden light
A sudden sunshine in the chilly glade.Sprite of New England forests, he was wise
Who gave thee thy quaint name,
As, threading, wind-stripped woods, with awed surprise
He first beheld thy waving fan of flame.