Monday, September 25, 2006

The Corkscrew Hazel, Contorted Filbert...

...aka Harry Lauder's Walking Stick...is one of the stunning highlights of a winter garden. Never mind that in the summer the tree looks like a haystack covered in ugly wrinkled dull green leaves. In winter it drops the leaves to reveal a fascinating structure of twisted, nearly coiled, branches.

My Contorted Filbert, purchased a year ago, sent up some vigorous shoots from the root stock this spring, and these are straight, not contorted. I suspected I should cut them off, but wasn't sure. Paghat's Garden website provided an apparently exhaustive description of the plant and how to handle it (cut the straight shoots; they take energy away from the desirable contorted branches), along with interesting background about its names.

The Paghat's Garden site, apparently a labor of love by a couple of gardeners across the Sound in Bremerton, has similarly detailed pages on a great number of popular Northwest plants. Highly recommended.

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