I'm trying to find 'Orange Peel' - anyone know a source? Buchholz has two in the ground and are propagating; I found a nursery in NJ that has it but they don't ship to California. In the meantime I'll wait for my 'Diane' to bloom and just keep dreaming, although that Jelena looks gorgeous so I'm going to go check it out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Form and Foliage

whaas-
Thanks for the heads-up. Do you know why their prices are so cheap?

Likely overstock...

Girard's is really a hit or miss on their conifers. Sometimes you feel like you got the deal of the century other times is like highway robbery. I've actually never ordered shrubs from then.

I do know 'Jelena' is a good selection and $10 for gallon pot seems like a steal. Maybe order a couple along with a conifer to save on shipping.

I ordered for first time ever about 8 conifers from Giards last autumn. The shipping was free. All roots looked extremely rotten. One I'm unsure of. One little japanese maple also unsure. Hit or miss, but I can't afford, personally, to spend that money again.. just me...

I too received my most disatrous order from them last fall. Its almost as if it was all the left overs and they wanted to blow it out of there.

I'd wonder if 10 dollar witch hazels were runts. I think one sometimes (often?) does run into instances where the smaller, cheaper plants were the grower's b grades, the ones that did not do as well and grow as big as the others in the row or block. Specimens with smaller tops than others in the same propagation I would be concerned about having root rot or some other pitfall that I would not want to bring home.

Thanks to everyone. I usually try to avoid ordering plants through the mail, but I'm developing a real yen for witch hazels. I guess when something like this looks too good to be true . . . etc. The prices are higher around here for them, but at least I can inspect the roots.

For a book you might be interested in...

Here is a link that might be useful: Witch Hazels from Timber Press

Thanks so much bboy. I just got a copy from Inter-library loan and it looks wonderful.

One of the nice things about the Witch Hazels book that bboy linked to is that there is a chart which evaluates how well they drop autumn leaves before bloom, something I've not seen elsewhere. They also have all the expected information, such as bloom color and size, autumn color, shrub size and shape, etc.

Doesn't the soil need to be somewhat acidic in order for these shrubs to do well?? Also, they have 'Diane' listed as hardy to zone 3. I find this highly unlikely. They're probably talking about the rootstock.

'Diane' is definitely a zone 5 plant.

I've been growing them in neutral soil with success.