Winter-flowering plants give pleasure out of all proportion to their size or numbers - and one of the most spectacular is the goldenflowered witch-hazel. The blooms are like a burst of sunshine in grey Januaries.

Later, the bright yellow leaves warm up fall.

People looking for a slow-growing tree with two seasons of beauty have a chance to see witch-hazels in bloom right now at their local nursery. This is definitely the time to check out flower colour and fragrance while you can see and smell exactly what you would be getting.

Generally it's the golden-flowered witch-hazels that are fragrant. That includes the deep yellow 'Arnold's Promise' and the pale yellow 'Pallida.'

But not all witch-hazel flowers are golden. Some are orange ('Jelena'), while others are shades of red ('Diane' or 'Ruby Glow').

Red or orange flowers usually have faint or no fragrance, and the fall foliage tends to be red, orange or a spectacular mix of both.

Witch-hazel is fairly easy to grow, hardy to Zone 5, and tolerant of many soils (though happiest in welldrained but moisture-retentive ones). The spidery flowers open in early to mid-January, scrunching up in bitter cold then opening wide again when the temperature rises.

Most popular, easy-to-get witch-hazels are hybrids between the Japanese witch-hazel (Hamamelis japonica) and the small, fragrant Chinese witchhazel (Hamamelis mollis).

Besides being slow-growing, H. mollis is also slow to root. That's why witchhazel hybrids are usually grafted onto a faster-rooting, more vigorous species: Hamamelis virginiana. The hybrids are still also slow growing, but eventually reach about four metres.

They're hardier than the species, and easy to garden under, as the branches are diagonally upright near ground level, branching and widening as they gain height.

Cutting witch-hazel branches for indoor vases can trigger sucker growth below the graft, because the rootstock tries to replace the lost branches. It's best to pull suckers off when very young, because older suckers need to be cut and will likely re-grow.

H. virginiana suckers produce small yellow flowers in fall, hidden by yellow leaves - nice, but not hugely ornamental. It is the herbal medicinal witch-hazel used as astringent on blood vessels.

Generally, witch-hazels need very little pruning - just removal of dead, badly placed, or diseased branches - and instead of growing shoots where growth buds ought to be, they will produce branches from inconvenient spots.

Witch-hazel seed usually needs two chilly winters outside to germinate. When I grew them from seed, it took eight years (and a severe talk to them about composting!) before flowers appeared.

Most shrubs can be layered, though I suspect it would be a long process for the slow growing witch-hazels.

Breeders in the U.S. are working on a winterflowering witch-hazel species H. Vernalis that reaches just over two metres. H. vernalis 'Amethyst' is said to have purple-red flowers with a spicy scent and scarlet foliage in fall.