How-To · Ilex glabra · Southeast

The Holly That Forgot the Spines

How to plant, pollinate, prune and renew inkberry, the native evergreen holly that is easier than boxwood and far better company.

8 min read · By Fiona von Grey · Aiken, South Carolina

I.A holly with the sharp bits left out

Most people meet inkberry the wrong way, as a nursery-row shrub sold for foundation planting and vaguely mistaken for boxwood. The plant deserves a better introduction. Ilex glabra is a native evergreen holly of the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain, a shrub of pine flatwoods and the edges of bays, and the leaves carry no spines at all: small, glossy, dark, and blunt-toothed only near the tips. The berries ripen black (hence the name) in September and hang on into November, long after most of the neighborhood has forgotten they are there.

Inkberry is a good plant for anyone who wants a rounded evergreen of real substance without importing a species from Asia. NC State Extension lists inkberry at 5 to 10 feet tall and 5 to 8 feet wide, hardy from zone 4 southward, tolerant of sun or partial shade, and content in acid clay or sand. The shrub spreads slowly by suckers into a modest colony, which is either a charm or a chore depending on your tolerance for colonies.

II.Boys, girls, and the berry question

Inkberry is dioecious, which means male and female flowers live on different plants, and only a pollinated female sets fruit. If you want black berries for the birds (and quail, wild turkey and a long list of songbirds will thank you), plant at least one female and keep a male within pollinator range. The flowers are small and greenish-white, open in May and June, and are worked hard by bees. The University of Maryland Extension adds that some inkberries may be self-fertile or pollinated by other hollies, so a lone female is not always hopeless, but we would not bet a season on it.

The male is the shrub that never gets a photograph and quietly runs the whole operation.

If you are growing the shrub for evergreen structure alone, you can plant males and think twice about nothing. We carry a male selection for exactly this reason. For a longer treatment of why hollies sometimes refuse to fruit, see our piece on holly pollination.

III.Planting and early care

Fall is the right time here in the Southeast, as it is for most woody plants: the soil is still warm, the air is cooling, and roots get to work all winter. Choose a spot in full sun to part shade. The soil should be acidic (pH below 6 is the target; the plant tolerates 4.5 to 6) and reasonably drained, although inkberry is more forgiving of moist and occasionally wet ground than most evergreen shrubs of this size. Dig the hole twice as wide as the root ball and no deeper, set the crown level with the surrounding soil, firm and water well, then mulch a few inches deep without piling mulch against the stems.

Water weekly through the first growing season if rain is short. After that, established plants handle dry spells, flooding and moderate salt with only a little complaint. Fertilizer is rarely needed; a light dose of an acid-plant fertilizer in early spring is plenty if growth looks pale.

IV.Pruning, renewal, and the bare-knees problem

Inkberry tends to get leggy and bare at the base as the shrub ages, and this is the complaint nearly everyone has. The fix is renewal pruning in early spring, before new growth starts: cut a few of the oldest stems back hard to encourage fresh shoots from the base, and spread the work over two or three years rather than doing all of it at once. The University of Maryland Extension specifically advises against shearing, which keeps the top dense and the lower stems starved of light. If you prefer a clipped hedge, shear lightly and renew regularly.

Pests are few. The ones most often reported are native holly leafminer, Japanese wax scale, and southern red mites. None is usually fatal, and a healthy plant in the right soil shrugs them off.

V.Where inkberry fits in the larger garden

Use the shrub where you would use boxwood but want a native: low hedges, foundation corners away from the house wall, woodland-edge screens, rain gardens, and the sort of damp site that would sulk a boxwood. Pair with Itea virginica and Cephalanthus in wet places, or with dwarf yaupon in drier ground. For thicket-style screens, read Plant a Thicket, Not a Wall; for the wider holly family, see A North American Guide to Hollies; and for sandy ground, Gardening in Sand is a useful companion.

§References

1. NC State Extension, Ilex glabra (Inkberry)
2. University of Maryland Extension, Inkberry Holly
3. UF/IFAS, Ilex glabra fact sheet