Dan West Garden Center
January 2009 Newsletter©
Deciduous Hollies
and Award Winning Plants…with odd names!
Every year, about this time, we get a lot of visitors to the Eads store and as soon as they walk through the door they say… “I just have a question. There’s a tree down here on the right…” I know immediately that they’re talking about a magnificent deciduous holly in the front yard of a house on Hwy 64. It’s around 15’ tall and wide and loaded with red berries…but no leaves.
“It’s a holly? But it has no leaves!” It’s hard to convince some people that it’s a holly, but it’s just as much a holly as the more popular evergreen varieties. I’ve heard them called hawthorns, because like hawthorns, they have berries and no leaves in the winter, but they’re really hollies and sooooo much easier to grow than hawthorns.
Correctly, it is Ilex decidua and the common name is ‘possumhaw’. It’s native to the southeast and I have seen them shrubby and 6’ tall and more tree-like and 20’ or more tall.
‘Warren’s Red’ (pictured below) is an especially nice selection of possumhaw. It is more upright, has darker foliage and more berries than the species.
But it’s not the only deciduous holly. Ilex verticillata, more commonly called ‘winterberry”, is also a native plant, but tends to be smaller, seldom exceeding 15’ in height, and more shrub-like in habit. The berries often persist through the winter and for most home landscapes, this is a better choice. There are several cultivars and hybrids available.
‘Afterglow’ is a compact plant that grows to 6’ tall and the berry is orange/red.
Berry Nice has bright red berries and grows to 8’ tall and 6’ wide.
Harvest Red grows to 12’ and equally as wide.
Red Sprite is a very compact, mounded form to 5’ tall.
‘Sparkleberry’ grows to 12’ tall and has large red berries.
‘Winter Red’ grows to 8’ but gets wider than tall with a heavy crop of red berries.
Both I. decidua and I. verticillata will grow in moderate shade to full sun, but they produce more berries in full sun. However, they will not produce any berries without a male pollinator nearby.
Almost all hollies are either female or male (a few are both) and only the female produces a berry. Obviously, for pollination to take place, both male and female must be in bloom at the same time, so it’s important to plant the right pollinator.
Ilex decidua can be pollinated by any male evergreen American holly (Ilex opaca) or better yet, plant ‘Red Escort”, a male Ilex decidua selection.
For Ilex verticillata, the hybrids and cultivars, plant ‘Apollo’ or ‘Jim Dandy’.
I’d like to have them no further than 50’ apart, but the closer your male and female are together, the better your berry production will be.
I like plants to grow naturally. I don’t care much for sheared, shaped or stylized plants and I like plant names to tell me something about the plant. Pink Perfection tells me it’s pink. Golden euonymus says “yellow’, even though I don’t like them. That’s just my personal preference. Which brings me to the 2009 All American Selections…? (Which I thank and credit for these photos).
Here’s an eggplant called ‘Gretel’. I always wondered why the fruit of an eggplant wasn’t white. Where did it get its name? I’m glad to see someone has fixed that!
Here’s a melon called ‘Lambkin’. I can understand making an eggplant white. But making a cantaloupe look like a watermelon? What were they thinking? And why ‘Lambkin’? Does it have a taste akin to lamb?
This is a squash called ‘Honey Bear’. Why?
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And finally…Rain Blue and Purple Viola. This one I understand.
All kidding aside, the 2009 AAS winners are great plants and make interesting additions to your garden.
But since I’m poking a little fun at names, let’s look at a few past AAS winners…
Just a little ‘food for thought’!
Remember ‘Gretel’ from above? This is ‘Hansel’. Guess who’s coming to dinner!
This is Purple Haze Carrot. Description is good, but carrots are orange. I couldn’t eat these.
I couldn’t eat the green ketchup either.
This melon is named ‘Amy’. I wonder why you would name a melon ‘Amy’.
I guess the same reason you would name this hot pepper ‘Carmen’.
It must have brought back memories of someone!
This is a squash called ‘Bonbon’. Wouldn’t a better name have been ‘Squaresh’?
Here’s an example of one that’s right. This watermelon is named ‘Sweet Beauty’.
There could not be a better name. Perfect!
This was December’s mystery plant. It is ‘Tiger Eyes Sumac’, Rhus typhina ’Bailtiger’.
We had several correct answers.
Here’s January’s mystery plant.
The contest ends on January 15th. Drop by either store to enter or you can email your entry to questions@danwestonline.com. One winner, selected from all correct entries, will receive a $25 Dan West Gift Certificate.
Thanks for shopping with us at Dan West.