Kitchen Garden Forum

I have a lovely witch hazel, but only about half of it produced flowers. Should I prune out the non flowering section? If so , when would be the best time to do it? Grateful for any advice.

It's possible that the non-flowering part is suckers from the rootstock. They should be fairly obvious, if so, as they will originate from the base. You need to be absolutely sure that they are suckers, though — it might be that part of your tree is not flowering due to other factors, usually climatic — otherwise you may end up removing wood which may flower in the future. Witch Hazel is usually grafted on seedling rootstocks of Hamamelis virginiana. This species flowers, but in the summer when the leaves are on, so they go almost un-noticed. It's a good way of identifying suckers, though. I have seen some old trees subsumed by sucker growth, which may not have happened had their owners realised what was really going on.