Green leaves, red berries make for a holly jolly holiday plant | Barnes

It’s hard to imagine the winter holidays without holly and its shiny green leaves and cheery red berries. The use of holly as decoration has its origin in pagan culture but was readily adopted as northern European lands became Christian.

Hollies were a signature plant in early formal gardens in Europe and were prized by the Victorians for their tolerance to pollution in industrial areas. Early settlers in the US used native hollies as decoration and as landscaping plants in place of the English holly they left behind.

Mystery Plant:Don't look for any leaves in winter on this holly tree | Mystery Plant

2021 Tour of lights:Decorations across Tallahassee, as submitted by readers

There are more than 200 cultivated varieties of native hollies, and the genus Ilex has over 560 species. They may be evergreen or deciduous and include trees, shrubs, and climbing species from the tropics to temperate zones worldwide.

Hollies are generally grown for their leaves, which are often spiny and glossy, and for their colorful berries, which often attract birds. The flowers of holly plants are small, cup-shaped, and rather inconspicuous and generally appear in spring or early summer.

Low-maintenance trees

Holly trees and shrubs tolerate a wide range of light and soil conditions and require minimal pruning, except to train the plants for special purposes or to remove diseased or dead branches. A great feature of holly trees is that they have been found to be wind-resistant during a hurricane.

Hollies are generally dioecious with male and female flowers on different plants. Those available for sale at plant nurseries are almost always female plants to assure the production of berries. Male plants in the Ilex family are common in our area, thus natural pollination is typical.

These plants are reliable, low-maintenance plants for Florida landscapes, and because of the diversity of sizes, forms, and textures, they can serve as formal or informal hedges or foundation plants as well as attractive accent or specimen plants.

There are so many holly plants from which to choose that I think you’ll have difficulty choosing just one for your landscaping. Local nurseries carry many varieties, and I’ve featured several of these below.

Several native Florida hollies

Our native American holly, Ilex opaca, is found in north Florida forests and grows to a height of 35 to 50 feet with a spread of 15 to 25 feet. It sports dense foliage, matures to a pyramidal form, and has dark green leaves with spines and red berries in winter. Many cultivars of this plant have been developed.

Another native holly is Dahoon, Ilex cassine, which grows to a small tree of up to 40 feet in height. It acquires a pyramidal to oval shape with age and also has dark green spiny leaves with red berries. Dahoon holly thrives in moist areas so may be a good tree to consider if you have a spot in your yard that retains moisture.

Ilex cornuta includes several cultivars that are very popular landscaping plants. Burford holly is a large shrub, up to 20 feet, that produces abundant red berries among the leathery dark green leaves and is especially beautiful if pruned into a tree form. If you like the look of this plant but don’t have room for it, consider Dwarf Burford which only grows to eight feet but is otherwise similar in appearance.

In the same family is Carissa holly, a personal favorite of mine because it only grows to three to four feet high, attains a spread of four to six feet, and therefore makes a great low hedge that rarely requires pruning. The leaves of Carissa are glossy and have a single spine at the tip. Unlike the other cornuta hollies, it does not produce berries.

An Ilex crenata cultivar called ‘Straight and Narrow’ will fit in a confined space as it maintains a columnar form without pruning. It will grow to six to eight feet in height with a spread of only two to three feet and has small glossy leaves. Male plants are generally sold in nurseries, so don’t expect berries. It is great for a tight space that needs some visual interest.

Hybrids pyramid shape 

Ilex hybrids are among the most popular hollies found in nurseries. Starting with those that grow into medium sized trees, East Palatka and Savannah hollies grow up to 45 to 50 feet and produce loads of red berries.

East Palatka maintains a tight pyramidal shape and has rounded, dull green leaves with a spine at the tip. Savannah develops a narrow pyramidal to columnar form and has medium dull green leaves.

Eagleston holly is a small tree of 18 to 25 feet. It also grows into a pyramidal form with dense, medium green leaves with soft spines. Red berries are plentiful as they are also on Nellie R. Stevens holly, another small tree with dense glossy dark green leaves. Nellie Stevens needs some room as it potentially will grow to 30 feet with a pyramidal form.

Oakland holly is unusual in that it has oak-shaped leaves that are bright green. This upright pyramidal tree attains a height of about 20 feet and has reddish-orange berries. The Oak Leaf holly also has distinctive shaped leaves that emerge as bronze and later turn emerald green. This is a fast growing holly with red berries that is considered more of a shrub with a terminal height of about 14 feet.

You may have more difficulty finding this last plant, a lusterleaf holly cultivar called Elizabeth Coleman. It produces extremely heavy crops of berries along the stems that turn bright red in fall and last through the winter.

It grows in a pyramidal shape up to 15 feet tall and makes a wonderful specimen plant because of its very visible berry clusters. I found this at the fall plant sale put on by Gardening Friends of the Big Bend at the UF/UFAS North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy. It’s worth looking for.

I hope you incorporate one or more holly trees or shrubs in your landscape soon. Have a Holly Jolly Holiday!

Susan Barnes is a Master Gardener Volunteer with UF/IFAS Leon County Extension, an Equal Opportunity Institution. For gardening questions, email AskAMasterGardener@ifas.ufl.edu.

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