eGarden © 2006 Ed Mues

From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on December 27, 2006

Deck the Halls.

The boughs of holly seem made for the season in the traditional red and green. They are gorgeous, with shiny dark green foliage and brilliant scarlet berries. Caution: the leaves bite a bit. If you don't have any holly, you can use some needled evergreens instead. For our purposes of displaying and extending the Christmas spirit, wreaths, door charms, kissing balls (mistletoe is included), garlands and roping, centerpieces and mantelpieces, any evergreen will do the job, but none so beautifully as holly. The most exquisite holiday decoration I ever received was a wreath made of holly.

There are nearly 400 species in the holly genus (Ilex) and their distribution is world wide, native to every continent save Australia. The hands down popular favorites can be narrowed to two: American holly, Ilex opaca, and European (a.k.a. English) holly, Ilex aquifolium. Both of these in their native habitat are true evergreens, and their displays are exceptional.

As with mistletoe, holly's history and symbolic significance is largely responsible for its continuing popularity as a highly prized Christmas green. Its unique beauty combined with its prickly leaves is memorialized in all of the arts, often contrasted to the rose with its great beauty accompanied by thorns.

Druids taught that the holly tree was a special place of winter safety for the wood spirits and that it warded off bad luck. They instructed the Celts to decorate their huts with branches of the tree.

The Romans followed with their pagan holiday, Saturnalia, beginning on Dec. 17th. Folk beliefs stated that the white flowers of the holly could freeze water, and keep away lightning and evil spirits.

As Christianity took hold, the holly became a symbol of Christ's sacrifice: the berries symbolizing the bloody passion, and the spines of the leaves the thorns in the crown. One medieval legend even held that holly plants sprang up in Jesus' footsteps along that same traveled pathway. The very nickname "holly" is likely derived from the early use of "holy" week.

Holly trees here in America reach their full prominence in fall when female plants bear their bright red fruits. Songbirds and game birds prize them. In eastern North America 14 species of Ilex grow, none exactly looking like another. All have interesting characteristics. American Holly will grow to an average height of 40 to 50 feet in the Northeast. In the south, they've been recorded up to 80 feet. They grow with a dense pyramidal crown, and can be found from coastal Massachusetts to northern Florida and in the Mississippi Valley from Indiana and West Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico.

American holly is slow growing and evergreen. It grows best in rich bottomland with deep moist acidic soils. The largest trees are in eastern Texas and southern Arkansas. Its leaves range from 2 to 4 inches, are glossy green and stiff. They grow alternately on the branch. The leaves have scallops that meet in a sharp spine (the bite mentioned above). The flowers are a small, inconspicuous greenish white, but their density together makes them noticeable. Once pollinated, the female flowers produce pea-like fruit that resemble berries and ripen into a bright red.

Many gardeners consider American holly to be the finest tree type evergreen holly. Today, with more than a thousand named cultivars, one might be hard-pressed to pick only one. They are planting Zone 5 to 9 plants that prefer sun or partial shade. Protection from desiccation from winter sun and wind is usually required to keep them looking and performing their best.

You and I know that as gardening enthusiasts, we want what we cannot or should not always have from the plant world. The American holly might be one to leave at the nursery. This same is true for the English holly, even more prized as an ornamental than out own native, for its larger and denser clusters of berries. It is even less hardy.

You and I know where we live. We know in what true planting Zone our home landscape in situated. We know we like Zone 5 in our hearts, but we also know that sometimes we become immersed in Zone 4, and on rare occasions, we face Zone 3, maybe for only a few days. Zone 5 makes us very comfortable, but the security is a false one. Trust me. Even with global warming, anomalies will continue to appear.

If you long to see the brilliant berries and the songbirds that will enjoy them in mid-winter, as well as some of the other forty fruit loving birds, all is not lost. Why risk your hard earned money and planting time if you don't have to?

Here I offer a solution: an Ilex that is deciduous, and after the foliage drops off in autumn, only the berries and the beautiful bark are in evidence at Christmas time. If there is snow on the ground, they are even more enticing. Last week I took a ride only a short way from my home, and there they were, announcing the coming Christmas. These were the wild Ilex verticillata or "common winterberry". They are native to North America, and hardy to planting Zone 3! That's for me, and you, too. But, better news is here.

Common winterberry, a.k.a. swamp holly, has dozens of cultivars that are even more spectacular than the wild native. Especially noteworthy are Cacapon, Red Sprite and Winter Red. New ones are coming along every day, and they have been for at least thirty years. Of course you want female plants for the winter show. One male with a corresponding bloom time within a forty-foot radius can provide all the pollination required for many females.

Once mature, a single winterberry can produce as many as 90,000 berries annually. Clip a few branches, bring them inside, place them in your favorite vase with no water, or simply just tie them together and hang them in a prominent place.

They transplant easily, prefer full sun and are not especially fussy about soil conditions, thriving in both wet and drier locations. One word of caution: make sure that children and pets cannot accidentally ingest the berries. This could make them ill.

If you become as favorably inclined to winterberry as I am, over the coming months you'll have abundant time to see just what winterberries you might like to invest in. This little bit of research will pay big dividends later.

For a spectacular landscape plant, consider visiting your local nursery this spring. Ask what they have available or can get. If the nursery values your business, it will be able to obtain what you ask for with relative ease. And from that point on, your holiday seasons will be brighter and even more beautiful. You will be able to deck the halls in your own style with your own holly berries. A very satisfying experience.

From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on December 27, 2006

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