Witch hazel ‘Jelena’

* Common name: Witch hazel ‘Jelena’

* Botanical name: Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’

* What it is: A small, multi-stem tree that’s one of the year’s first plants to bloom – some years starting in February. Flowers appear on leafless branches and are a blend of red, orange, and yellow that add up to a coppery color. Petals are narrow and wavy to give a look that’s “spidery” in appearance.

Fall foliage is a brilliant orange-red. Deer don’t like witch hazels and usually let them alone.

‘Jelena’ won a 2018 Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Gold Medal Award as a plant deserving greater use in mid-Atlantic landscapes.

* Size: 10 to 12 feet tall and wide in 20 years.

* Where to use: Ideal as a woodland-edge plant but also attractive enough as a stand-alone specimen at a house corner or in an island bed. Plant several for a natural tall border hedge. Blooms best in full sun but also does reasonably well in half shade.

* Care: Prefers damp, acidic soil. Keep soil damp the first year, then water usually only needed during hot, dry spells to prevent leaf scorching.

No pruning needed unless plant outgrows its space, then thin and shorten right after flowering in early spring. ‘Jelena’ will spread by producing creeping shoots (“suckers”) so cut them off or sever if you don’t want colonization.

A scattering of a granular, organic, acidifying fertilizer formulated for trees and shrubs once in spring is helpful but not critical.

* Great partners: Winterberry holly takes similar growing conditions and may still have complementing red fruits when ‘Jelena’ starts flowering. Helleborus is an early-flowering perennial to plant under and around. Or underplant with golden creeping sedum in sunny spots and yellow-blooming barrenwort in shadier ones.