Tis the season for berries: Celebrating the holly tree

While some might think of gardening as an activity for just the warmer months, experienced gardeners and plant lovers recognize that gardens and landscapes have something to offer in all four seasons. Sure, spring and summer is mostly about flowers, with colorful blooms visible on any number of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants anywhere you look. Fall has fewer blooms, but gives us the delightful change in foliage color associated with many of our deciduous trees and shrubs. As the calendar gets set to turn into winter, those colorful leaves have just about all fallen, and many of those trees and shrubs are bare. So where do we look for color and interest in winter landscapes?  In many ways, winter is the season for berries, and perhaps no plant showcases the winter berry attribute like the holly.

There are, of course, many different species of holly, but so many of them have something to offer during the winter months. First, there is the American holly, Ilex opaca, our native evergreen holly. Ilex opaca is often found growing in mixed forests, and can be used in larger landscapes as a specimen tree, or as a screen, but is not well suited for small landscapes as it grows to a height of 40-60 feet tall. Plants are dioecious, meaning individual trees are either male or female. Only the females produce berries, but a nearby male is needed for pollination. ‘Greenleaf’, at 20-30 feet mature height, and other female cultivars of American holly, are better suited to smaller landscapes.  

Left: The ‘Nellie R Stevens’ holly, a cross between the English and Chinese hollies, is a  pyramidal-shaped evergreen popular in modern landscapes. Above right: Berries from the 'Savannah holly.' Photo: J. Robbins,  CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Below right: Holly berries and leaves. Photo: J. Robbins, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

There is also the well-known ‘Nellie R Stevens’ holly, a cross between the English and Chinese hollies, which is monoecious (self-fertile) berry-producing, pyramidal-shaped evergreen popular in modern landscapes. It too can be used either as a specimen or screen. At up to 30 feet tall and 20-25 feet wide, it provides a dense growth nearly as wide as tall. Foster’s holly (Ilex x attenuata ‘Fosteri’) and Savannah holly (Ilex x attenuata ‘Savannah’) grow to a similar height as ‘Nellie R Stevens’, but are both slightly more slender, at 10-15 feet wide. Both Foster and Savannah are heavy berry producers with clusters of pea-sized red fruit from early fall through late winter.

The aforementioned English holly can be a bit difficult to grow in the Southern U.S. However, its classic combination of red berries and sharply toothed dark green foliage is the blueprint for traditional holiday décor, and in fact is often referred to as Christmas holly. The Meserve holly, sometimes referred to as blue holly due to its especially dark shade of foliage, is the most visually similar holly that we grow in Eastern N.C. Many of the blue holly cultivars, such as ‘Blue Prince’/’Blue Princess’ and ‘Blue Boy’/’Blue Girl’ are dioecious male and female pairs and are typically medium sized shrubs used in foundation plantings or hedges.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Winterberry holly, Ilex verticillata, while discussing hollies that bear fruit in winter. Winterberry is especially adapted to wet sites, and unlike the others mentioned, is deciduous. Its bare stems dappled with dark red berries can absolutely dazzle in the right setting.

Matthew Stevens is the County Extension Director and Horticulture Agent for North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s Pitt County Center. If you have questions about this article or gardening in general, please contact the Pitt County Extension Master Gardeners at [email protected] or 252-902-1705.