December and January were pretty warm, relatively speaking, and I was wondering how it would affect the witch hazel. Last year this plant bloomed on January 15; not this year. My guess is that the plant did not know that it was officially winter. The ground was not frozen at this point.
February, on the other hand, was very cold and pretty snowy—actually, very snowy for a February. A weather report at the end of the month listed February 2020 as the twelfth snowiest recorded February in this area. It was more January than February weather.
For many days after the February 15–16 storm, there were absolutely no footprints in the snow, except my own.
Mind you, this is a full day after the storm. Four days after the storm, there were still no signs of life. That snow is alarmingly pristine.
What about last year? Was I imagining things? Was it because the weather was so Januaryish? Apparently not; last year there were paths riddling the backyard.
It was warming up again, and the witch hazel was showing signs of life.
Now that the days were above freezing, how fast would the flowers unfurl?
Pretty fast. And somewhere in this last week of February, there were finally a few footprints in the snow.
It’s warming up. The petals will be sticking straight out within days.
They are slow-motion blow ticklers, but instead of a little noise, they develop a little scent. When it warms up a little more, the scent will become much stronger. What does it smell like? Witch hazel. The scent is very similar to that of the toner.