This week: Plant Native Holly for Winter Color
Hello,
Perk up your winter garden with native Hollies! Some are evergreen and provide beautiful foliage year-round, and others have vibrant berries that shine in the winter. These shrubs provide shelter for wildlife and food for birds and small mammals throughout the winter. One of these three is bound to look great in your landscape!
Winterberry Holly
You’ll want to put Winterberry Holly where you can see it because it puts on a striking winter show. In autumn, its leaves turn yellow, and only the red berries remain through the winter. If you want berry production (which is the whole point of this plant), you need a compatible male holly planted within 40 feet of the female, so oftentimes this is planted as a hedge or in a grouping. It’s easy to find in nurseries as a cultivar, and there are a ton of options for sizes, berry color, and fruiting time.
Inkberry Holly
Inkberry Holly is the go-to native for low to medium-height evergreen hedges because it has a similar look to non-native Boxwood. The straight species grows to six feet tall, making it a great privacy screen along a property line. For foundation plantings under windows, ‘Densa’ and ’Compacta’ are medium-sized female cultivars (‘Pretty Boy’ is their male mate). Small cultivars include ‘Strongbox,’ ‘Gem Box,’ and ‘Shamrock’ (mate: ‘Squeeze Box’), and can be used to edge borders. While it will produce berries, they are dark-colored and don’t stand out.
American Holly
While many Ilex species are shrubs, American Holly is a slow-growing, long-lived tree that reaches 20 to 50 feet tall, with the potential to grow even bigger. However, it has been cultivated into shrubbier dwarf selections for home landscapes. American Holly produces white flowers in the spring and supports over 40 butterflies and moths. In the fall, it produces red berries that overwintering birds consume, and has that festive holly-and-berry look that decorates the holiday season. If you’re adding American Holly to your home landscape, use it as a year-round privacy screen or sound buffer. You’ll need male and female plants to set berries, so ensure you have space for a few trees.
Elsewhere:
Listen to this In Defense of Plants podcast and learn what you can do to help support the habitat and health of lightning bug (firefly) populations.
Happy New Year!
Julie