Hamamelis Garden –Hamamelis Collection

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Giardino degli Hamamelis (“Hamamelis Garden”) is in Santa Cristina di Borgomanero (Novara). It is a delightful winter garden, with a lot of winter flowering plants. It also houses an important collection of witch hazels (Hamamelis spp.), officially recognized by the SOI (Italian Horticultural Society).
The garden, which extends over 2.400 square yards around a family country house, has been managed by Dr. Umberto Cammarano, an expert and passionate botanist, since 2003.

Inspired by the French gardener Hélène d”Andlau, he designed several “rooms”, using boxwood, yew and hornbeam hedges, thus creating many surprising sights, while sheltering small animals and birds from the cold winds. Inside the garden, many plant species grow, mostly winter varieties: Hamamelis (eleven types), trees and shrubs with a particularly beautiful bark (Acer conspicuum “Phoenix”, Betula utilis “Jacquemontii”, Cornus spp., Prunus serrula) that stand out along with white birch trees (Betula utilis “Jacquemontii”), evergreen species like hollies, a collection of aucubas, and a spectacular Pinus contorta “Chief Joseph”. Then, there are numberless snowdrops, a greenhouse for citrus and several small decorative elements made of stone.
There are also many other blooming plants in the other seasons, including a Prunus campanulatus and several hydrangeas macrophylla, not to mention the wondrous autumn colours of their foliage.

The collection of witch hazels

The Hamamelis collection started in 2004, after Dr. Cammarano’s visit to the magnificent huge park of Jelena De Belder, in Hemelrijk (Belgium). Jelena was a great botanist who passed away in 2003: along with her husband Robert, she was the very creator of many splendid cultivars, including “Jelena”, “Diane”, “Livia”, “Georges”, “Robert”, “Antoine Kort” “Ruby Glow”, and “Spring”, whose patents still belong to the De Belders.

In her garden still grow the following wondrous varieties: H. x intermedia “Angelly”, “Anne”, “Antoine Kort”, “Aphrodite”, “Arnold Promise”, “Aurora”, “Danny”, “Diane”, “Georges”, “Harry”, “Jelena”, “Livia”, “Orange Beauty”, “Pallida”, “Primavera”, “Ruby Glow”, “Westerstede”, Hamamelis “Brepetala”, and “Rocester”.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)