VMN Banshee Reeks Chapter

In today's native plant highlight, let's look at the American Hazelnut (Corylus americana), a thicket growing, deciduous shrub that can grow from 9 to 12 feet tall and produces delicious and nutritious hazelnuts. It is fast growing and can grow 1 to 2 feet each year along one main stem while producing additional stems from the root system. Hazelnuts will begin appearing numbers within 2-3 years after planting. The nuts and leaves of the shrub support various native mammals and birds. The American Hazelnut is in the same genus as the European Hazelnut, which was a staple of early European gatherers and is the base for Nutella.

Planting a hazelnut shrub or two is a great way to attract native wildlife, provide useful habitat, and get some delicious nuts for your own use.

For today's invasive highlight, meet the semi-evergreen plant Wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei), also known as Fortune's Spindle. This plant can act as ground cover, a shrub, or a woody vine that can displace native vegetation and kill trees in both urban and forested areas. It is a semi-evergreen plant that creeps in a vine form and can form new roots when the woody branches touch moist ground or aerial rootlets when in the presence of a tree, wall, or other support system.

Wintercreeper operates in a manner similar to English Ivy, which also crowds out native vegetation and can pull down or smother trees through dense growth. It is still sold as a ground cover for landscaping, but better alternatives exist within the realm of native plants, including Virginia Creeper, various phlox plants, wild ginger, and others. Removing wintercreeper is a tough job that requires destroying the entirety of the plant and removing all roots. Truly a plant that should be avoided and removed.

For today's native plant highlight, let's look at witch-hazel, one of the last native plants to bloom this year. American witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is a large shrub or small tree that generally grows in a dense, multi-stemmed clump. It can grow up to 30 feet tall and form a stand 20 feet wide. The flowers bring a yellow color to the garden while other plants are dying back. The flowers are pollinated by owlet moths and late season bees. The seeds go dormant over the winter and are forcibly expelled the following autumn, shooting up to 20 feet.

The witch-hazel plant has been used for medicinal purposes, with the bark mainly used to create extracts or oils to soothe cuts and insect bites. However, early settlers were also fond of witch-hazel for its purported use in divining water locations. Witch-hazel branches were used as dowsing rods as a means to locate wells and other hidden water sources.