‘Jelena’ is an orange witch hazel that smells beautiful and looks fiery.

There are so many reasons to feel hope at this time of the year in the garden. The snowdrops, those pinpricks of light in the deep winter, are fully in flower now. Hellebores are opening. Buds are just starting to think about swelling. But, oh, the thing that gives me the most hope that it really isn’t always going to be as miserable and muddy as it is right now is this Hamamelis ‘Jelena’.

Forget pinpricks of light and little reminders that there’s hope: this plant is an explosion of joy. Not just an explosion of colour, firework-like, in the grey garden. But an explosion of scent. It smells warm. It smells spicy. It smells of everything your cold sad English garden doesn’t.

One of my aims with this garden is to make sure that it has plants that make you glad of whatever season it is. Witch Hazel is one such plant. It doesn’t look like any other flower. And it doesn’t smell like any other flower either.

Easy-peasy to plant and grow, these shrubs are. Sun or part-shade, a bit of shelter from strong winds, and you’re off. Just make sure you plant it near somewhere you’ll pass every day, so that throughout this cold time of year, it’s a treat leaving the warm house. This is an orange variety of Witch Hazel that I got from Gardening Express.

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