After nursing my new Witch Hazel in its container all summer, I went to finally plant it and some blooms were there! First question, why is it blooming so early? Second, why is what is supposed to be 'Diane' (on my wish list for years) have yellow blooms?!?!? Please someone tell me it is an anomaly and it will bloom red in February!

Your plant is a witch hazel with yellow flowers that flowers in the fall. I would go back to the store and try to exchange it for the right one.

My Diane is still a baby but the March blooms are red! I will try to remember to snap a pic tomorrow

Here's red blooms!

NorfolkLiz.....you forgot to upload the pic.

So apparently this variety blooms twice - once in late winter early spring with red blooms I hoped for and in the fall with yellow. It is blooming now!

Hi NorfolkLiz:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this before now. I did not see your post last year, or I would have hollered out to you then.

You have a grafted plant - your 'Diane' Witch-hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane'). 'Diane' has the red flowers that you have shown; I have a pretty large one in the yard off my deck here at the Valley, along with about a dozen other selections and species.

A grafted plant means that the understock (root system) is not the same (identical) plant as the scion that was grafted onto it. You are experiencing those yellow flowers on the suckers from the understock - which is definitely Hamamelis virginiana since it is flowering now in the fall. You should be able to observe closely where the yellow blooms are now, and where the red blooms were back in the spring (and will be again this coming spring). They are on entirely different branches.

If you want to continue to enjoy the red flowers of 'Diane' and want it to grow to a healthy full life, you will need to start pruning off those understock suckers - and continue to do so for the lifetime of your 'Diane'. If you allow the suckering understock to keep growing, it will outcompete the grafted portion - and eventually starve it in favor of its own existence.

Too bad there is not a way to judiciously prune so you can continue to enjoy two season bloom!
Thanks for the info!

You are entirely and fully welcome.

To enjoy such display, you should have two separate plants that are not competing for survival.

I have allowed grafted selections to succumb to overwhelming understock here at the Valley. I have several very fine Common Witch-hazel specimens now, which started out as the understock to Hamamelis x intermedia clones.

'Diane' is a reasonably strong grower; I'd work to suppress the suckers on that plant so that you retain 'Diane' as the dominant component. If you really like the fall blooming yellow flowers of the native Common Witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), then look to procure a seedling or two (or collect the seed from the flowers you are currently enjoying, when they ripen) and grow them out as separate plants.

Your Hamamelis 'Diane' is the scion grafted onto a rootstock of a (possibly wild) species which has sent up a sucker from said rootstock which is genetically different from the scion 'Diane' and that's why the flowers (on said sucker) are yellow.
This is a 'problem' as such in that this will be an ongoing maintenance chore for you to cut all emerging rootstock suckers because they are more vigorous than the graft.