[choollaBard]

My grampa used to sing that Jim Reeves song, he liked to sing How Great Thou Art also. He was a tough truck driver his whole life. I remember how surprised I was the day I was playing with my new cassette tape recorder as a kid when he said, “Bring that here Ricky and I’ll sing you a song.” I never heard him sing before or knew that he did sing. He had a low powerful voice that sounded just like Jim Reeves or Bing Crosby, depending on the song. I found out later that he learned to sing driving across the country in his truck. That YouTube song is touching to me this morning Effie.

Here’s a picture of what’s going on in my backyard right now. This is a Contorted Hazelnut (Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’) that I have planted as a specimen tree. It is flowering right now. This picture was taken on a gray cloudy day, but the tree still lights up my backyard and contributes bright colors and hues on a gray day.




Contorted Hazelnut.jpg



I think there are many emotions that can be evoked in a garden. I think there are many lessons we can learn from nature as well as appreciating its beauty.

This particular tree is very attractive in the spring when its foliage begins to appear. The leaves come out in a tender bright shade and in a somewhat sparse fashion. Then, there is a transition to its summer appearance, with its lush and textured dark green leaves completely covering its ornate framework. Next, the amber-brown fall color is very artful and romantic to view, especially when some of the leaves start to fall exposing some branches, which twist and turn in every direction. For some, the great attraction to this plant is the ‘winter interest’ that it provides to a garden. While some ornamental grasses and shrubs with brightly colored stems can provide excellent winter interest, when a Contorted Hazelnut is present in a residential landscape in the wintertime, all eyes will be drawn to it first. When all the leaves have fallen completely off , the twisted and turned branches are clearly visible even from a window in the house. Somewhat like a painting that draws your eye and keeps your attention, the Contorted Hazelnut becomes an object to gaze upon when it and other plants have gone dormant.

But, from the point-of-view of other folks, the best is yet to come. What happens next is in late winter, as in the photo above, this plant decorates itself with ornaments. These ornaments are yellowish-bright lime green flower clusters called ‘catkins.’ When the Hazelnut hangs its catkins during this time it is a great thing to see. Late winter is a unique time that I think sometimes goes unnoticed and unappreciated by even some of us gardeners. What I mean is many people rightly think of our gardening year in terms of four seasons. We think of spring, summer, fall, and winter— right? But, I wonder if it has occurred to many that there is a kind of in-between season for gardening (and appreciating our gardens) as it relates to the growing season of a plant. There is a period of time where the plants are neither dormant, as in winter, nor shutting down as in fall, but they are not fully active either as in spring or summer. This is a time when we are in a kind of limbo, not knowing really what is going to happen and on what timetable. A season when the grass is green, but it is not growing and does not need cut.

This “fifth season,” if you will, is a time of year when the Contorted Hazelnut can really enhance and add to one’s garden and one’s life. Somewhat like a sunset on a Haystack Rock on the ocean in the Pacific Northwest, as the colors move from orange to purplish to muted darkness, when the Contorted Hazelnut is in this flowering stage it can really hold our attention and even be a source of great reflection. During this fifth season, some folks have shared with me that it can be a time when they experience sadness and grief, or even regret. However, others have shared with me that during this period of time, just as they know the sunset is ephemeral and the flowers on the Hazelnut are fleeting, this fifth season of life can be the most fulfilling and rewarding time, and a source of great beauty. I think this special time of the year can be appreciated in a fuller way by the latter group. Because they know when the sun does disappear, it will not be gone long—there will be a reuniting soon. And, this latter group also knows that whenever the flowers do finally fall from the Hazelnut, this does not signal ‘the end’ of anything, but just the opposite . . . this is a gesture for the new bright green leaves to appear, and a first movement of ‘the beginning’ of the new gardening year.