By Andrew Bunting, PHS Vice President of Horticulture
As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, many of our garden plants either deteriorate with each frost or start to slip into a period of dormancy in the garden. However, not all plants lose their seasonal interest. This is the time of the year when hollies really look their best. For many, a classic holly image is shiny, spiny evergreen leaves and red berries. While this is the typical form, there are also other types including more shrub-like hollies like the native inkberry holly, Ilex glabra, or the myriad of cultivars of the deciduous hollies, Ilex verticillata.
Just over the Delaware River in New Jersey, there are three native hollies that are found throughout the Pine Barrens. With the iconic holly “look” is the American holly, Ilex opaca (pictured above), which is characterized by evergreen leaves with distinctive spines and an abundance of red berries. There are dozens of cultivars. Some of the best include the PHS Gold Medal selection ‘Satyr Hill’ and ‘Jersey Princess’. It is worth noting that with all hollies, both male and female plants are needed for fruit production, so for these two cultivars plant a male ‘Jersey Knight’ nearby for pollination. The American holly forms an upright pyramidal tree that can be grown as a single specimen and is excellent for screening too.
