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Hazel grows in woodland and scrubby areas and in many hedgerows around the country.It is common on rocky ground, notably areas over limestone rock.
Usually it is hardly noticed as part of the background, until it announces itself at this time year by producing its showy catkins.
This is part of the annual show of spring, one of the first plants to show. The catkins are very pretty, carried all along the slender twigs. They are about the length of a little finger and narrower.
Although not brightly coloured, in shades of creamy yellow, there is not much colourful opposition at this time of the year and they are nicely set off by bare branches.
Colour change
Having been present in bud form since late last summer, they quickly elongate and change colour from green-brown to cream.
The catkins are the male flowers of the hazel, and each is composed of scores of tiny male flowers that shed pollen at a touch, or a gust of wind that makes them dance and shake.
Wind-pollinated plants usually have little or no colour in the form of petals or bracts, since they are not trying to attract insects that might carry pollen from plant to plant.
The wind-blown pollen can travel for a long distance and reach unrelated plants for cross-breeding, which is the major advantage of pollinating other hazel trees.
The trees have both male and female flowers in any case, and the wind-pollination is a bonus. The female flowers are tiny, just a few red filaments under 1cm long.
They are located on the same twigs, but a little below the catkins, in a position where the pollen can shower down on top of them.
The female flowers are usually carried in small groups.
Hazel nuts
When the flowers are pollinated and set fruit, the hazel nuts quickly form, hidden by a green cup and plentiful foliage. In late summer, the nuts are full-size but still milky inside.
Eventually the kernel becomes more solid and the nuts begin to turn brown and ripen.
When almost brown, the nuts are shed onto the ground, where they are picked up and carried away by squirrels and hidden for winter stores.
Some of these nuts are lost and scattered, and give rise to new seedlings. Hazel is a very efficient self-sower.
The nuts are still a bit milky when they fall in autumn but, if they are placed on a flat tray to dry and ripen, they are good to eat.
Hazel has been a food source to humans since prehistoric times.
Shelter planting
The common hazel is Corylus avellana, and is a fine tree for shelter planting, as it forms a good barrier of stems to about 8m, and it can be cut down to sprout even more prolifically.
It makes a lovely woodland with masses of grey-silver trunks. It looks well with birch, holly, ash or oak.
It needs only reasonably good, but well-drained soil.
Plant young trees directly into the dead sod after spraying with Roundup, spacing the trees randomly but about 2m apart each way, on average.
The contorted hazel is a once-off mutation with twisting twigs and slow growth, usually to not much more than 3m.
It is very popular with flower arrangers for spring display. It is often seen in gardens and, strangely, its catkins hang straight.
Purple hazel is derived from an American hazel species and can make a fine contrast with green-foliage trees in a large garden.
Hellebores have become very popular for spring display, one of the earliest perennials as good as spring bulbs.
However, when plants become popular, diseases arrive – and hellebore leaf spot has become quite common. It is not a fatal disease, but can spoil the look of the flowers and new foliage.
It transfers from the old leaves to the new growth, and the cycle of infection can be broken by removing the old leaves now.
This does not completely remove the threat, but it lessens it considerably. Just cut the old leaves away close to ground.
This has a tidying effect and also show off the new shoots and flowers.
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