Buttercup Winter Hazel
Corylopsis pauciflora
February flowers come early enough that one late frost can undo the whole show — acid soil and shelter are the price of it.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Yellow
- Sunlight
- Partial shade, with morning sun and cover from the afternoon.
- Watering
- Keep it moderately moist, water through dry spells, and never let it stand wet.
- Feeding
- An ericaceous feed in spring, once flowering is done.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- February
- Pruning
- Shape lightly after flowering only — never in summer or autumn.
- Feb–Mar Bud Break
- Mar–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Feb Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 6 ft 7 in
- In-row spacing
- 6 ft 7 in
- Between rows
- 8 ft 2 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 10–13 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
The habit is Buttercup Winter Hazel’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
Hellebores, Snowdrops, Rhododendrons, Ferns
Green-leaved shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com