Ilex verticillata 'Winter Red (female)'

Ilex verticillata 'Winter Red' is the winterberry other winterberries are measured against. A large, rounded female of the southern strain, six to ten feet high and wide, this native holly drops the summer leaves to reveal bare stems packed with profuse, glossy red berries, and where lesser clones fade, 'Winter Red' holds the color clean and bright deep into the season, right through the coldest months.

That staying power is why so many gardeners and florists call it the best of the winterberries. The berries color early and cling for months, brilliant against snow, gray bark, or a plain fence, and cut branches are a staple of holiday arrangements, holding fruit indoors for weeks. A mature stand in full berry is one of the great sights of the winter garden, and the fruit feeds robins, waxwings, and mockingbirds when little else remains.

Winterberry is a deciduous holly of eastern North American wetlands, native from Canada to the Gulf along swamp edges, pond margins, and wet woods, and the finely toothed, spineless leaves give no hint of holly until the flowers open. Only females fruit, and only with a male blooming at the same time nearby. 'Winter Red' flowers late, so a late male such as 'Southern Gentleman' or 'Apollo' is the right partner, set within about fifty feet; the early 'Jim Dandy' will not do.

Give 'Winter Red' the moist to wet, acidic soil the species loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the big, rounded shrub anchor a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or the back of a mixed border, glorious in winter and quietly green the rest of the year. Plant several together for a solid wall of berries, and keep a late-blooming male in range to insure the crop.