{"title":"Hollies","description":"\u003cp\u003eHollies are the evergreen, and a few deciduous, shrubs and trees of the genus \u003cem\u003eIlex\u003c\/em\u003e, grown for dense, year-round foliage and the berries that follow their small spring flowers. Tough, adaptable, and long-lived, they range from towering pyramidal trees to fine-leaved shrubs that clip into hedge or topiary, and from the familiar spiny-leaved kinds to the soft, small-leaved yaupons and their kin. On most, a female plant needs a male nearby to set the winter crop of red, orange, or black fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the landscape hollies are the great problem-solvers. They screen and hedge, take shearing without complaint, anchor a foundation planting, and give evergreen weight to a border in every season. In winter the berries carry the show, lighting a bare garden and standing out against the dark leaves, and the whole plant reads as neat and furnished when little else does.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe grow hollies for their toughness and their outsized value to wildlife. The berries feed birds deep into winter, when other food is scarce; the dense evergreen cover shelters nesting and roosting birds; and the spring flowers, easy to overlook, are rich in nectar for early pollinators. Native hollies in particular earn their place twice over, as garden structure and as habitat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive them sun to part shade and reasonable drainage, and plant a pollinating partner if you want berries. For more evergreen framework see our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/conifers\"\u003eConifers\u003c\/a\u003e, pair with our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/large-shrubs\"\u003eLarge Shrubs\u003c\/a\u003e for a mixed screen, and find the native kinds among our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/southeast-natives\"\u003eSoutheastern Natives\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"ilex-glabra-leucocarpa","title":"Ilex glabra f. leucocarpa","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex glabra\u003c\/em\u003e f. \u003cem\u003eleucocarpa\u003c\/em\u003e is the white-berried surprise among the inkberries, a native evergreen holly that trades the usual near-black fruit for berries of clean ivory white. On the ordinary inkberry the dark berries all but vanish against the deep green leaves, but here the pale fruit stands out cleanly and holds on the branches from fall right through to spring, a quiet, unexpected show in the winter garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name is worth getting right, because the trade almost never does. This is a botanical form, published by F. W. Woods in \u003cem\u003eRhodora\u003c\/em\u003e in 1956, not a cultivar, so the correct styling is f. \u003cem\u003eleucocarpa\u003c\/em\u003e in lower-case italics rather than a name in single quotes. Kew now treats the form as a synonym of the species outright, on the reasonable ground that a white-fruited plant is still an inkberry. We keep the name because the fruit color is the entire reason anyone seeks the plant out. \u003cem\u003eGlabra\u003c\/em\u003e means smooth, for the neat, spineless, glossy leaves that set inkberry apart from the prickly hollies, and \u003cem\u003eleucocarpa\u003c\/em\u003e means white-fruited.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBehind the novelty stands one of the finest native broadleaf evergreens of eastern North America, ranging along the coastal plain from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to the Gulf, growing in sandy, acid, often boggy ground. The small greenish-white flowers open in May and June and matter most to the bees: inkberry nectar yields the celebrated gallberry honey, a mild, light honey long tied to the pinewoods and bogs of the South. As with any holly, the white berries appear only on pollinated female plants, so a male inkberry set nearby is needed to insure the crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNeat, rounded, and evergreen, inkberry works as a low informal hedge, a foundation planting, a massing in a rain garden, or a companion to azaleas, camellias, and other acid-loving plants. Give the roots moist, acidic soil in sun to part shade and keep the ground from drying out. Two honest cautions come with the species. Inkberry suckers steadily from the roots and will drift into a colony, which is a virtue in a mass planting and a nuisance beside a path. And every inkberry goes bare-legged with age, dropping the lower leaves and losing the billowy look of a young plant; the answer is selective renewal pruning in early spring, cutting old stems to the base, rather than shearing the outside and hoping.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057888923763,"sku":"ILEX-GLAB-LEUC-01G","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilexglabraf.leucocarpa2.jpg?v=1787317699"},{"product_id":"ilex-decidua-finchs-golden","title":"Ilex decidua 'Finch's Golden'","description":"\u003cp\u003ePossumhaw is the deciduous holly of southern bottomlands, a shrub or small tree that spends the growing season looking like nothing in particular and then earns the whole year in December. The leaves drop, and what is left is a fine gray branch structure loaded with fruit that holds on bare wood through the winter. On the ordinary wild plant that fruit is red. \u003cem\u003eIlex decidua\u003c\/em\u003e 'Finch's Golden' carries bright yellow fruit instead, a selection made by Bill Finch of Mobile, Alabama, and the difference against a gray winter sky is not subtle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species is native to bottomlands and moister upland sites across the southeastern United States, and one practical virtue sets possumhaw apart from the better-known winterberry: this holly is far better adapted to high-pH soils than \u003cem\u003eIlex verticillata\u003c\/em\u003e, which sulks and yellows on limey ground. The name possumhaw comes from the wildlife that works the fruit over, and haw is the old word for a hedge fruit, the same haw as in hawthorn. The epithet \u003cem\u003edecidua\u003c\/em\u003e simply records the unholly-like habit of dropping every leaf.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHollies are dioecious, male and female flowers on separate plants, and this matters commercially rather than as a curiosity. Small white flowers open in spring, and only a female plant will fruit, and only then if a male is within range of the bees. 'Finch's Golden' is a female. A male \u003cem\u003eIlex decidua\u003c\/em\u003e planted nearby is the reliable answer; a male \u003cem\u003eIlex opaca\u003c\/em\u003e will usually do the job, though the bloom times are a less certain match. Anyone buying this plant for the winter fruit should plan for a pollinator rather than hope for one. The berries are mildly toxic to people and are best left to the mockingbirds, cedar waxwings and robins that strip them by late winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite 'Finch's Golden' where the winter silhouette will be seen from the house, against evergreens or a dark wall that will throw the yellow fruit forward, and reckon on twelve to fifteen feet in time. The plant takes full sun to part shade and a wide range of soils, wet or dry, acid or alkaline, which is a rare tolerance in a holly and makes possumhaw useful where little else fruits well. Limb the plant up as a small multi-stemmed tree to show the pale gray bark, or leave the shrub full to the ground as a screen. Hardy through USDA zones 5 to 9.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889120371,"sku":"ILE-DECI-FINC-GOLD-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-96.jpg?v=1720138757"},{"product_id":"ilex-glabra-male","title":"Ilex glabra (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex glabra\u003c\/em\u003e, the inkberry or gallberry, is one of the finest native broadleaf evergreens of eastern North America, rooted in the sandy, acid soils of the coastal plain from Nova Scotia and New Jersey south through Florida and across the Gulf states. In wet pinelands, pocosins, and boggy edges this holly has long been a defining presence, and wherever the ground runs lean, sandy, and moist, inkberry settles in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis particular plant is the male form of inkberry, and the role is as quiet as it is essential. Male inkberry bears no black berries, and none of the rare white-fruited fruit treasured by collectors, but the flowers carry the pollen without which no female holly will fruit. Hollies are pollinated by insects rather than by wind, so a male has to stand within bee range of the females it serves, and gardeners planting inkberry for berries need at least one in the planting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond that reproductive job the male inkberry offers plenty in the garden. The evergreen foliage is dense, glossy, and spineless, forming a neat rounded shrub that answers well to pruning and shaping. Full sun to part shade suits the plant, given acidic soil that holds some moisture, and mass plantings, low hedges, and pairings with azaleas and camellias all come easily. Be warned that inkberry suckers from the roots into a slow colony, and that every plant of this species eventually goes bare at the base, whatever the label promises. Renewal-prune selectively in early spring, taking old stems to the ground, and the shrub stays furnished; shear the outside instead and the legginess only gets worse.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers, modest as they look, carry real weight. In May and June the nectar of inkberry draws bees, and from that flow comes the famed gallberry honey, a mild, pale honey long associated with the Southern pinewoods. Bees, bogs, and hollies have worked together across that region for centuries, and a male inkberry quietly underwrites the whole exchange, feeding the hive and setting the stage for the female shrubs to fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889382515,"sku":"ILEX-GLAB-MALE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexglabraJohnGrimshaw_45126b5e-f9df-4421-8843-6740ca0cd538.jpg?v=1755938337"},{"product_id":"ilex-glabra-nigra","title":"Ilex glabra ‘Nigra’","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex glabra 'Nigra' is the inkberry chosen for good looks in every season, a compact, rounded evergreen holly with unusually rich, dark green leaves. Where the wild inkberry can bronze and dull through a hard winter, this selection was picked to hold a deeper, cleaner green, and the smooth, spineless foliage stays handsome on a tidy frame that runs lower and denser than the run of the species.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species is one of the great native broadleaf evergreens of the East. Ilex glabra, inkberry or gallberry, grows through the sandy, acid soils of the coastal plain from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to the Gulf, in wet pinelands and bog edges. The epithet glabra means smooth, for the neat, unarmed leaves, and 'Nigra', black or dark, names both the deep foliage and, on female plants, the small black berries that give inkberry the common name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Nigra' has earned a place. The horticulturist Michael Dirr, who has spent decades searching for better inkberries, judged this clone about the best in his Georgia trials, praising the dark, persistent foliage and the compact habit. Those are exactly the traits that turn a useful native into a garden staple: color that holds, a shape that stays full, and the toughness inkberry brings from the wild bogs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNeat and evergreen to the base, 'Nigra' works as a low clipped or informal hedge, a foundation planting, a massing, or a dark green backdrop for perennials, and takes shearing without complaint. Give the roots moist, acidic soil in sun to part shade, and pair the shrub with azaleas, camellias, sweetbay, and native ferns in the same acid company. For berries, set a male inkberry nearby; the spring flowers feed bees either way.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889480819,"sku":"ILE-GLAB-NIGR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1370.jpg?v=1720138765"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-hoskins-shadow","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Hoskins Shadow'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern coastal plain, native from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Adaptable almost to a fault, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and content in sun or shade, \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e takes shearing as neatly as boxwood and has served Southern gardens for generations as hedge, screen, and clipped structure. ‘Hoskins Shadow’ is a standout among the named forms: a dense, fast-growing shrub or small tree, 15 to 20 feet in time, chosen for unusually large, dark green foliage and, above all, for cold hardiness well beyond the ordinary yaupon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plant carries history as well as good manners. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated black drink that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony and trade, and that coastal settlers later adopted as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America’s only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, \u003cem\u003evomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes accompanied the drink, a blame the plant did not earn, since modern analysis of the leaves finds no emetic or toxic compounds at all; the common name is kinder, from the Catawban ya’pa, a diminutive meaning small tree. The fruit is another matter, mildly toxic to people and pets, and better admired than sampled.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Hoskins Shadow’, also listed in the trade as ‘Shadow’s Female’, was selected for that big dark foliage and toughness by the Tennessee nurseryman Hoskins Shadow, of Winchester, Tennessee. The plant has reportedly come through minus ten degrees Fahrenheit, a cold that would kill most yaupons outright, which pushes this holly a full zone north of where the species usually stops. Female and generously fruitful, ‘Hoskins Shadow’ hangs abundant scarlet berries that hold from fall through spring when a male yaupon grows within reach.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFew evergreens give this much for so little trouble. Use ‘Hoskins Shadow’ as a fast, dense screen or a large clipped hedge, or let a single plant grow into a small multi-stemmed tree limbed up to show the pale trunks. The dark leaves make a fine backdrop for lighter foliage and for the scarlet winter fruit, so site where the berries can be seen from a window or walk, and set a male yaupon within bee range to guarantee the crop. Our straight \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e male does the job, and the narrow ‘Will Fleming’ does it in a footprint two feet wide, which is useful when there is nowhere obvious to put a second shrub. One male serves six to eight females. Gardeners in the upper South and lower Midwest, long shut out of yaupon, finally have a form worth trying.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889710195,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-HOSK-SHAD-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-110.jpg?v=1720138773"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-female-gold-top","title":"Ilex vomitoria (female) 'Gold Top'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern coastal plain, native from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Tough, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and endlessly shearable, the species has anchored Southern gardens for generations. 'Gold Top' rings a color change on the familiar green: each spring the new growth flushes a bright yellow-green, gilding the tips of a compact, dense female shrub, and in fall the same plant hangs the usual red yaupon berries when a male grows nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon is more than a well-mannered evergreen. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, vomitoria, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a charge the holly did not earn, being no emetic in ordinary use; the common name, from the Catawban ya'pa, means simply 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Gold Top' is a Woodlanders introduction, grown from a single golden-topped plant found in Calhoun County on the Texas coast. The bright new growth is the whole point, a warm chartreuse flush that lights the crown of the shrub in spring and early summer before settling to green, giving a compact yaupon a season of color that the plain species cannot match.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse 'Gold Top' where the spring gilding will be seen: near an entry, at the front of an evergreen border, or against darker foliage that throws the gold forward. The compact, dense habit clips readily into a low hedge or a rounded specimen, and the red winter berries, set with a male yaupon such as 'Dewerth' nearby, carry the plant into the cold months. Site in sun for the brightest new growth and heaviest fruit, and count on the same salt and drought tolerance that makes yaupon indispensable.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889808499,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-FEMA-GOLD-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-108.jpg?v=1720138776"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-folsoms-weeping","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Folsom's Weeping'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the fine-textured evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The species wears small, glossy, oval leaves on gray twigs, tolerates salt, drought, and hard shearing, and has long anchored Southern gardens as hedge, screen, and topiary. 'Folsom's Weeping' breaks from that upright habit entirely: a tall female selection whose branches spill downward in long, pendulous curtains, so that a single mature plant reads as a green fountain rather than a shrub.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon holds a deeper claim on the region than ornament. The roasted leaves and twigs made the caffeinated 'black drink' that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony and trade, and that later served coastal colonists as a homegrown coffee or tea. This holly is North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The forbidding species name, vomitoria, comes from a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, wrongly pinned on the plant, which is not emetic in normal use; the softer common name descends from the Catawban ya'pa, a diminutive meaning 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe weeping form was first found in Folsom, Louisiana in 1952 by J.A. Foret, and named by the late Tom Dodd, Jr. of Semmes, Alabama, one of the great Gulf Coast plantsmen. Long a prized accent in Southern gardens and stubbornly hard to find in small sizes, these plants set the same crop of small translucent scarlet berries as any female yaupon when a male grows nearby, the fruit hanging along the drooping branches from fall well into spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Folsom's Weeping' room to be a specimen. A single plant makes a living exclamation point beside a gate, at the turn of a path, or against a plain wall where the cascading silhouette can be read against the sky; several set in a row weep into an unusual informal screen. Underplant with low evergreens or a groundcover so the sweeping lower branches have something quiet to fall against, and site a male yaupon such as 'Dewerth' within range to load the branches with winter fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057889939571,"sku":"ILE-VOMI-FOLS-WEEP-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1223.jpg?v=1720138778"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-male-will-fleming","title":"Ilex vomitoria (male) ‘Will Fleming’","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The wild plant is a broad, twiggy shrub, so a yaupon that grows straight up like a green column is a genuine oddity. ‘Will Fleming’ is exactly that: a male selection with a strict fastigiate habit, reaching twelve to fifteen feet tall on a base only two or three feet wide, a living exclamation mark carrying the fine yaupon leaf all the way up.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon is more than an architectural curiosity. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated black drink that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America’s only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, \u003cem\u003evomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a charge the holly did not earn, since analysis of the leaves finds no emetic compounds; the common name, from the Catawban ya’pa, means simply small tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe narrow form is said to have been found in east Texas by Will Fleming, whose name the plant now carries, and circulated for years as ‘Will’s Upright’. We have not found the origin documented outside the trade, so take the attribution as the nursery world’s account rather than a matter of record. What is not in doubt is the usefulness. As a male, ‘Will Fleming’ sets no berries, but pollinates female yaupons within bee range, and does it from a footprint barely two feet across, which makes this the pollinator to reach for when there is nowhere obvious to put a second shrub. One male serves six to eight females. One caution earns mention: with age the upright stems can lean and splay, so most gardeners tie or lightly shear the column now and then to keep the crisp vertical line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing draws the eye upward like a true column, and ‘Will Fleming’ delivers one where space is tight: flanking a doorway, marking the corners of a formal bed, punctuating a long border, or standing in a row as a narrow living screen along a fence or property line. Pair with low mounding evergreens or perennials at the base, give full sun for the densest growth, and site within reach of the female yaupons whose fruit you actually want. Drought, salt, and shearing leave the plant untroubled.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890070643,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-WILL-FLEM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-113.jpg?v=1720138781"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-dewerth-male","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Dewerth' (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern United States, native along the coastal plain from Virginia south to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The species carries fine, glossy, oval leaves on pale gray twigs, takes shearing as willingly as boxwood, and shrugs off salt, drought, and heat, a combination that explains a long career as a Southern hedge and topiary plant. 'Dewerth' is a male clone, chosen for a dense, upright habit and unusually small, narrow leaves, and grown not for fruit, which male hollies never carry, but as the pollen partner that lets the berried females set a full crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLong before the nursery trade, yaupon was the source of the caffeinated 'black drink,' a roasted-leaf tea that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later took up as a homegrown coffee substitute. Yaupon remains North America's only caffeine-bearing native plant. The unfortunate species name, vomitoria, records a European misreading: early observers watched the ritual purging that sometimes accompanied the drink and blamed the holly, though the plant is not emetic in ordinary use. The common name is older and gentler, from the Catawban ya'pa, ya for tree and pa for leaf, a diminutive that means little more than 'small tree.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis particular male came to Woodlanders from a Mississippi Experiment Station by way of Jim Berry of Flowerwood Nursery in Alabama, and was propagated and named by the late Tom Dodd, Jr. from a plant growing in 'Doc' Dewerth's garden in College Station, Texas. The narrow leaves and tight, ascending branches give 'Dewerth' a neater, more columnar bearing than the run of seedling yaupons.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, 'Dewerth' earns a place two ways. Set a plant within pollen range of berried females such as 'Hoskins Shadow' or 'Yawkey' and the females fruit heavily; used alone, the dense upright form clips into a fine-textured evergreen column, a slender screen, or the green architecture of a formal planting. Give this holly full sun for the tightest growth, though the shrub holds up in part shade, and pair with other rugged evergreens wherever a well-behaved, drought-proof backbone is wanted.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890103411,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-DEWE-MALE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1160.jpg?v=1720138784"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-female-virginia-dare","title":"Ilex vomitoria (female) 'Virginia Dare'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon holly is a small-leaved evergreen shrub or small tree of the southeastern United States, native from coastal Virginia south to Texas. Adaptable to a fault, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e takes shearing as gracefully as any boxwood, which has made the species a Southern mainstay for hedges, topiary, and clipped evergreen structure. The tiny white flowers open from March into May and are easy to miss, but the bees do not miss them, and on female plants they give way to a heavy crop of small, translucent berries that hang on well into winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLong before any of that, yaupon was the source of the caffeinated black drink of the coastal tribes, brewed from roasted leaves and twigs for ceremony and trade, and later taken up as a coffee or tea substitute along the Virginia and Carolina coast. North America’s only caffeine-bearing native plant, yaupon is enjoying a quiet revival today as a homegrown tea. The species name is a slander: modern analysis of the leaves finds no emetic or toxic compounds and caffeine at levels comparable to ordinary tea. Aiton named the plant \u003cem\u003evomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e because the black drink was taken in quantity during ceremonies that involved purging, and the epithet has been libeling a perfectly good tea plant ever since. The fruit is a different matter, mildly toxic to people and pets, and best left to the birds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Virginia Dare’ is a female selection with warm-toned, orange-cast fruit, taller than many forms and reliably fruitful, suited to a clipped or informal hedge. Our records have the plant made in Dare County, North Carolina by B. Bauers, Sr., and named for Virginia Dare, the first English child born in North America. That account exists nowhere but in our own catalogue, so we pass it on as nursery history rather than as published fact.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant a male yaupon within bee range to insure fruit set, one male serving six to eight females. Yaupon has no documented early and late races as winterberry does, so any male of the species flowering in the same spring should serve. Site this holly anywhere the ground drains, in sun or shade, and shear or leave loose as the mood takes you; few evergreens of the South are harder to disappoint.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto credit to the Tyler Rose IDEA Garden\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890168947,"sku":"ILE-VOMI-FEMA-VIRG-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexvomitoriaVirginiaDareTylerRoseIDEAGarden.jpg?v=1782910854"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-male","title":"Ilex vomitoria (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern United States, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e shears as cleanly as boxwood and has long been a Southern mainstay for hedges, screens, and topiary. This is the straight male form: no berries, since male hollies never fruit, but a dense, dependable evergreen and the pollen source that every berried female yaupon needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYaupon is more than a well-mannered evergreen. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated black drink that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America’s only caffeine-bearing native plant. The harsh species name, \u003cem\u003evomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a charge the holly did not earn, since analysis of the leaves finds neither emetic nor toxic compounds; the common name, from the Catawban ya’pa, means simply small tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA male yaupon does quiet, essential work. Hollies are pollinated by bees and other insects rather than by wind, so the male has to stand where an insect can make the trip while both plants are in flower. Yaupon blooms March into May, and unlike winterberry it has no documented early and late races, so any male of the species flowering in the same spring should serve. One male will fruit six to eight females. The plant is no less useful standing alone, building the same fine-textured, close-sheared evergreen mass as any yaupon, and asking for nothing once established.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePlant a male yaupon wherever female yaupons are grown for fruit, within roughly forty to fifty feet so the bees can do their work; treat that as a planning figure rather than a fence, since isolated hollies have been recorded fruiting well anyway. Beyond pollination, use the dense evergreen habit for a sheared or informal hedge, a screen, a topiary, or clipped structure, in sun for the tightest growth or in shade where few evergreens hold up so well. Salt spray, drought, and hard pruning leave the plant unbothered, which is much of why yaupon remains a Southern workhorse.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890234483,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-MALE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-109.jpg?v=1720138790"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-yawkey","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Yawkey'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e shears as cleanly as boxwood and has long been a Southern mainstay for hedges and clipped structure, the females carrying translucent scarlet berries into winter. ‘Yawkey’ rewrites that last detail in a rarer color: this is a yellow-berried yaupon, hung each winter with soft amber-gold fruit instead of red, on an upright, somewhat open and spreading frame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe species behind this oddity is no ordinary shrub. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated black drink that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later drank as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America’s only caffeine-bearing native plant. The unkind species name, \u003cem\u003evomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, records a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a fault the holly does not carry, since modern analysis of the leaves finds neither emetic nor toxic compounds and caffeine at ordinary tea strength; the common name, from the Catawban ya’pa, means simply small tree. The fruit is the exception, mildly toxic to people and pets, and better left to the birds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe yellow-fruited form was found by F. G. Tarbox, Jr. on the T. A. Yawkey plantation in Georgetown County, South Carolina, and introduced by Brookgreen Gardens, where a single rescued seedling first fruited in 1943. Tarbox had learned of the plant from Dr. F. A. Bell of Georgetown, who had seen a yellow yaupon growing on an old dike. Tarbox described the plant as \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e variety \u003cem\u003eyawkeyii\u003c\/em\u003e, the berries yellow, four to six millimeters across and slightly flattened; at the time only a couple of other plants were known to exist. Even now the yellow yaupons remain scarce in the trade, which is much of the appeal for collectors and designers hunting something out of the ordinary.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the garden ‘Yawkey’ plays against every expectation of a holly. The amber-gold fruit glows where scarlet would shout, lovely against dark evergreens, a gray wall, or a winter sky, and pairs beautifully with a red-berried yaupon for a two-tone planting. The upright, open habit suits an informal screen or a specimen more than a tight clipped hedge, though the plant shears if asked. Site in sun for the best fruit, and keep a male yaupon within bee range for pollination: our straight \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e male, or the columnar ‘Will Fleming’ where there is no room for a second broad shrub. One male serves six to eight females. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/the-node\/ilex-vomitoria-yawkey-the-yellow-berried-yaupon-that-sells-out-in-winter\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eRead our field notes and design guide for this holly here.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890365555,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-YAWK-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-111.jpg?v=1720138794"},{"product_id":"ilex-amelanchier-female","title":"Ilex amelanchier (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex amelanchier is one of the surprises of the genus, a holly that drops the leaves in fall and carries none of the usual prickles. This rare native grows as a tall deciduous shrub or small tree, and the female plants, this one among them, hang dull, matte red berries on unusually long stems, a soft-toned, almost muted display quite unlike the glossy scarlet of a Christmas holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet amelanchier is the giveaway, borrowed straight from the serviceberry, Amelanchier, for leaves that echo that small tree: oval, soft, and up to four inches long, nothing like the spiny evergreen foliage most people picture on a holly. The likeness has earned the plant several common names, Sarvis Holly, Serviceberry Holly, and Shadbush Holly among them, each pointing back to that gentle, deciduous leaf.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild Sarvis Holly is genuinely scarce, threading the tea-dark blackwater rivers and floodplains of the Southeastern Coastal Plain, gathering around natural ponds, and settling into the clay-based depressions known as Carolina bays, with a northern limit in southeastern North Carolina. Little known in gardens, the plant is one of those quietly special natives that reward a collector willing to give the roots damp, acid ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a female, this holly needs a male of a compatible holly nearby to set the long-stemmed fruit, and given that partner the plant makes an unusual specimen for a moist, acid, part-shaded spot: a pond edge, a rain garden, a woodland border, or a native collection. The soft summer foliage, red fall berries on bare twigs, and sheer rarity all recommend the shrub. Set the roots with sweetbay, itea, and swamp azalea in the same damp company.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890562163,"sku":"ILEX-AMEL-FEMA-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/ilex_ameranchier_howard_horne_01.jpg?v=1732642949"},{"product_id":"ilex-opaca-female-selected-red","title":"Ilex opaca (female) 'Selected Red'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex opaca, the American holly, is the classic evergreen holly of eastern woods, a medium tree with tough, spine-edged, leathery leaves and the bright red berries that have meant Christmas for generations. 'Selected Red' is one of the good ones, a female clone Woodlanders propagated from a group of hollies planted many years ago in Aiken, South Carolina, chosen for very good foliage and an abundant crop of bright red fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat sets this clone apart is the form. 'Selected Red' grows into a dense, pyramidal tree with a slight, graceful weep to the branches, a softer silhouette than the stiff pyramids of many American hollies, and the habit is close enough to the old variety 'Croonenburg' that the two may be one and the same. Dense to the base and evergreen, the tree reads as a solid green cone all year, then lights up with red in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name opaca means dull or opaque, for the matte, un-lacquered surface of the American holly leaf, which sets the species apart from the glossy Asian and English hollies. Native across the eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Florida and west to Texas, American holly grows on well-drained woodland soils and ranks among the most widely planted native evergreens, valued for form, winter berries, and the birds the fruit feeds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a female, 'Selected Red' needs a male American holly in range to set that heavy red crop, so pair the tree with a pollinizer such as 'Jersey Knight' nearby. Slow and long-lived, the plant makes a fine specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or a woodland-edge anchor, in full sun to part shade and moist, acidic, well-drained soil. The berried branches are a natural for holiday greenery, and the winter fruit feeds songbirds when little else is left.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057890857075,"sku":"ILEX-OPAC-FEMA-SELE-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-105.jpg?v=1720138803"},{"product_id":"ilex-integra","title":"Ilex integra","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex integra is the holly for people who do not think they like hollies, an evergreen tree from Japan whose leaves carry no spines at all. The dark green foliage is smooth-edged, glossy, and thick, giving a clean, almost magnolia-like calm, and on female trees the show comes in fall and winter, when bright red berries gather along the branches against the deep green.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe botanical name marks the difference: integra means entire or undivided, for those untoothed, spineless leaves. In Japan the tree is the mochi-no-ki, the mochi tree, a name that reaches past the garden into old craft, for the sticky inner bark was long boiled down into torimochi, the birdlime once smeared on branches to catch small birds and insects. The same tree has been planted at shrines as a sacred tree, valued as much for meaning as for beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the milder middle of China, Ilex integra grows slowly into a dense, upright small tree, in time reaching twenty to thirty feet. The plant favors the mild, humid conditions of the coastal Southeast, thriving in fertile, well-drained soil in sun or part shade, and rewards patience with a tidy, year-round evergreen presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlow, clean, and handsome, the mochi tree suits a formal garden, a courtyard, an evergreen screen, or a specimen spot near an entry where the red winter berries can be enjoyed. The spineless leaves make the tree friendly to brush against, an advantage along a path or a seating area. Set a male holly within range for the fullest berry set, and pair the tree with camellias, fatsia, and other broadleaf evergreens for a quiet, layered planting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891184755,"sku":"ILEX-INTE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-99.jpg?v=1720138811"},{"product_id":"ilex-pedunculosa-female","title":"Ilex pedunculosa (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex pedunculosa is the holly that fools people, an evergreen with smooth, spineless, glossy leaves closer to mountain laurel than to any prickly Christmas holly. The real signature comes in fall, when bright red berries hang from slender stalks an inch or two long, dangling below the branches like tiny cherries, a detail no other cultivated holly quite matches and the source of both the botanical name and the common one, longstalk holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet pedunculosa points straight to those long peduncles, the stalks from which the fruit depends, and the trait is worth the name. Native to central and southern China, Taiwan, and Japan, this small evergreen tree is also among the very hardiest of the broadleaf evergreen hollies, holding the glossy leaves and setting fruit as far north as USDA zone five, where most evergreen hollies will not grow at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat combination of cold-hardiness, clean spineless foliage, and cherry-like fruit has won admirers, chief among them the horticulturist Michael Dirr, who wrote that longstalk holly should be used more than it is, that the tree is apparently not well known, and that to him it is the most handsome of the evergreen hollies that can be grown in northern gardens. High praise, and deserved, for a plant still hard to find in the trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a female, this longstalk holly needs a male within range to set the long-stalked red berries, which birds relish and deer tend to leave alone. Slow and refined, the plant makes a quietly distinctive specimen, a screen, or an evergreen anchor for a border in sun or part shade and moist, well-drained soil. Give the tree room to show the hanging fruit, and pair the roots with rhododendron, mountain laurel, and other acid-loving evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891643507,"sku":"ILEX-PEDU-FEMA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-106.jpg?v=1720138823"},{"product_id":"ilex-pedunculosa-male","title":"Ilex pedunculosa (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex pedunculosa (male) is the pollen partner for one of the most refined and cold-hardy evergreen hollies in cultivation. Like the female, this male longstalk holly carries smooth, spineless, glossy leaves closer to mountain laurel than to a prickly Christmas holly, on a slow, medium to large shrub or small tree of quiet good looks. What the male does not do is fruit; what the male does is make that fruit possible.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLongstalk hollies are dioecious, with male and female on separate plants, and a female sets the signature red, long-stalked berries only with a male in bloom nearby. This plant fills that role, opening small pollen-rich flowers in step with the females and carrying the same clean evergreen foliage and notable cold-hardiness, holding leaves as far north as USDA zone five where most broadleaf evergreens fail.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species comes from central and southern China, Taiwan, and Japan, and takes both botanical and common names from the long peduncles, the slender stalks that hold the fruit well clear of the branches on female trees. Little known in the trade, longstalk holly has drawn steady praise as among the handsomest evergreen hollies for cooler gardens, and a male plant is the quiet requirement behind every berried female.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant this male wherever a female longstalk holly is grown for fruit, and let the dense, spineless, deer-resistant evergreen earn a place as a screen, a background shrub, or a specimen in sun to part shade and moist, well-drained soil. One male covers several females nearby, so a single plant tucked into a border sets the whole group fruiting. Pair the roots with rhododendron, mountain laurel, and other acid-loving evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891741811,"sku":"ILEX-PEDU-MALE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-107.jpg?v=1720138825"},{"product_id":"ilex-opaca-fallaw","title":"Ilex opaca 'Fallaw'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex opaca, the American holly, is the classic evergreen holly of the eastern woods, a medium-size tree with tough, leathery, spine-edged leaves and, on female trees, the bright berries that have meant Christmas for generations. 'Fallaw' keeps the familiar form but changes the color of the fruit: where the wild tree ripens red, this selection hangs clear amber-yellow berries, an uncommon and cheerful contrast against the dark evergreen foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name opaca means dull or opaque, a nod to the matte, un-glossy surface of the American holly's leaf, which sets the species apart from the lacquered Asian and English hollies. Native across the eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Florida and west to Texas, the tree grows on well-drained woodland soils and has long been one of the most widely planted native evergreens, valued for dense form, winter berries, and the wildlife the fruit feeds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeedling American hollies vary enormously, in leaf, in form, and in fruit, so gardeners have long relied on named clones for the best plants, and 'Fallaw' is a good one. This yellow-fruited selection was found many years ago on the Fallaw farm near Batesburg, South Carolina, and propagated to keep the amber-berried trait true. As a female clone, the plant needs a male American holly in range to set that unusual crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlow and long-lived, 'Fallaw' builds into a fine pyramidal specimen for a lawn, a woodland edge, or a tall evergreen screen, and the yellow berries make a memorable change in a holiday arrangement. Give the tree full sun to part shade and moist, acidic, well-drained soil, and set a male holly nearby for fruit. Birds take the berries through winter, so a stand does double duty as evergreen structure and a wildlife feeder.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057891905651,"sku":"ILE-OPAC-FALL-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-103.jpg?v=1720138828"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-jim-dandy","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Jim Dandy'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata 'Jim Dandy' is a small shrub with an outsized job. Winterberry, the native deciduous holly, puts on one of the great shows in the winter garden, bare stems crowded with brilliant red fruit, but only female plants carry that fruit, and only when the right male blooms alongside them. 'Jim Dandy' is that male for the early-flowering winterberries, a dwarf pollinizer bred to bloom in step with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTiming is everything with winterberries. The species comes in two broad strains, a northern one that blooms early and a southern one that blooms later, and a female will only set fruit if a male opens flowers at the same moment. 'Jim Dandy' is an early bloomer, the classic partner for early female clones like 'Red Sprite', 'Afterglow', and 'Maryland Beauty'; for the late females, such as 'Winter Red' and 'Winter Gold', a different male like 'Apollo' is needed instead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a plant, 'Jim Dandy' stays neat and dwarf, four or five feet, with the same finely toothed, spineless leaves as the rest of the clan, deciduous and unremarkable through summer. That is exactly the point: this is a working shrub, tucked in for pollination rather than display, small enough to fit at the back of a border or among the females themselves without crowding them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant one 'Jim Dandy' within about fifty feet of the early female winterberries meant to fruit, and a single male will service ten or more of them. Give the roots the moist to wet, acidic soil the whole group loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the females take the spotlight while this quiet partner does the essential work behind the winter berries.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892003955,"sku":"ILE-VERT-JIM-DAND-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-406.jpg?v=1720138831"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-x-serrata-sparkleberry","title":"Ilex verticillata × serrata 'Sparkleberry'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex\u003c\/em\u003e ‘Sparkleberry’ is the aristocrat of the winterberries, a vigorous hybrid holly bred from the native winterberry, \u003cem\u003eIlex verticillata\u003c\/em\u003e, and the Japanese winterberry, \u003cem\u003eIlex serrata\u003c\/em\u003e. William F. Kosar made the cross at the U.S. National Arboretum in 1961, and the Arboretum released the plant in 1978, together with a male from the same cross named ‘Apollo’. The pairing brought hybrid vigor and a heavier, longer-holding crop: tall, upright stems that shed their leaves in fall and blaze with bright red fruit, persisting so well that the berries often hang on into March.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat performance has made ‘Sparkleberry’ one of the most celebrated deciduous hollies in cultivation, grown for the sheer quantity and staying power of the fruit, which runs a little larger than the straight species at about five sixteenths of an inch. A mature plant reaches ten to twelve feet, upright and eventually a little leggy at the base, which is a feature rather than a flaw: the bare lower stems lift the berry display to eye level and above, and lower plants can be set in front to hide the ankles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry is a deciduous holly of eastern North American wetlands, and the Japanese parent brings extra vigor, but the family rules still hold: only female plants fruit, and only where a male blooms at the same time within bee range, since hollies are pollinated by insects and not by wind. ‘Sparkleberry’ flowers late, in early June. The long-blooming hybrid male ‘Raritan Chief’ is the most forgiving partner, spanning early and late females alike, and the late-flowering ‘Southern Gentleman’ serves this plant well too, which is worth knowing if a winterberry hedge already has one gentleman in residence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive ‘Sparkleberry’ the moist to wet, acidic soil winterberry loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the tall shrub command a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or the back of a border, spectacular through the winter and feeding birds into spring. The long-lasting cut branches are prized for holiday arrangements, and a group planted with one male carries a dependable, long-running show. Expect the first real crop about three years after planting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892135027,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-X-SERR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilex_Sparkleberry_1_1024x1024_2x_42a4f9dd-1440-4966-bc17-996c20961773.webp?v=1750801208"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-maryland-beauty","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Maryland Beauty'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata 'Maryland Beauty' is winterberry doing what winterberry does best, and a little more of it. This native deciduous holly loses the leaves in fall to reveal bare gray stems packed with fruit, and 'Maryland Beauty' was singled out from the northern strain for an especially heavy crop of bright red berries, a dense, glowing display that holds through the winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere many winterberries grow tall and upright, 'Maryland Beauty' stays low and spreading, a rounded three to five feet, easy to place at the front of a border or in a mass. The finely toothed, spineless leaves are quiet and green through summer, so the plant asks little attention until fall, when the fruit arrives and the show begins. Birds eventually strip the berries, but not before they have carried the garden through the hardest months.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry belongs to the wet ground of eastern North America, swamp edges and pond margins from Canada to the Gulf, and the name verticillata, whorled, describes how the small flowers cluster along the twigs. Only females fruit, and only with a male of matching bloom time nearby. 'Maryland Beauty' is an early-blooming northern type, so the dwarf early male 'Jim Dandy' is the right partner, set within about fifty feet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Maryland Beauty' the moist to wet, acidic soil winterberry loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the low, heavy-fruited shrub light a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or the front of a mixed border through the coldest months. A few cut branches of red berries are a classic holiday green, and the winter fruit feeds songbirds when little else remains.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892200563,"sku":"ILE-VERT-MARY-BEAU-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-412.jpg?v=1720138837"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-x-serrata-raritan-chief","title":"Ilex verticillata x serrata 'Raritan Chief'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Raritan Chief' is a male winterberry with a long working day. A compact hybrid of the native winterberry, Ilex verticillata, and the Japanese winterberry, Ilex serrata, this deciduous holly was bred as a pollinizer rather than a show plant, and a long bloom season makes 'Raritan Chief' one of the most flexible pollinizers in the group.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name points to the source. 'Raritan Chief' came from the breeding work of Dr. Elwin Orton at Rutgers University, on the Raritan River in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a program that produced some of the best hollies in American gardens. Orton crossed the American and Japanese winterberries for hybrid vigor, and this male selection carries that strength on a neat, compact frame.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause 'Raritan Chief' flowers over a long stretch rather than a narrow window, a single plant overlaps the bloom of many different female winterberries and pollinizes them all. The classic partner is the famous 'Sparkleberry', a female of the same parentage, but 'Raritan Chief' also sets fruit on 'Winter Red', 'Autumn Glow', 'Harvest Red', and others, early and late alike, one male covering a whole mixed planting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a plant, 'Raritan Chief' stays compact and rounded, four or five feet tall, clean green through summer and unremarkable in winter once the leaves drop, exactly what a working pollinizer should be. Tuck one into the back of a wet border or among the females themselves, within about fifty feet, in the moist to wet, acidic soil the whole clan loves and full sun to part shade, and let the females carry the berries while this quiet hybrid does the essential work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892298867,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-RARI-CHIE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-410.jpg?v=1720138840"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-red-sprite","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Red Sprite'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex verticillata\u003c\/em\u003e ‘Red Sprite’ is winterberry shrunk to garden size and cranked up in intensity. Where much of the landscape fades to gray, this compact native holly turns into a beacon, the bare stems packed with heavy clusters of large, glossy scarlet berries that color in fall and cling deep into winter, a living ember at the pond’s edge or against fresh snow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarely three to five feet tall and about as wide, dense and neatly rounded, ‘Red Sprite’ is the smallest of the well-known winterberries, correctly \u003cem\u003eIlex verticillata\u003c\/em\u003e ‘Nana’ and also sold under the older name ‘Compacta’. That restraint is the whole appeal: the plant delivers the full winterberry fireworks on a frame that fits a small garden, a foundation planting, or the front of a wet border, where a ten-foot clone would overwhelm. The berries themselves run noticeably larger than the species average, which is why a small shrub reads so loudly from across a garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry is a deciduous holly of eastern North American wetlands, a shrub of swamp edges, pond margins, and wet woodland from Canada to the Gulf, and the finely toothed, spineless leaves look nothing like a Christmas holly until the flowers appear. Only female plants fruit, and only where a male blooms at the same time within bee range, since hollies are insect-pollinated and pollen will not travel on the wind. ‘Red Sprite’ flowers early, so the early male ‘Jim Dandy’ is the standard partner, and the long-blooming ‘Raritan Chief’ will serve as well. The late-flowering ‘Southern Gentleman’ is the wrong choice here, however good he is elsewhere in the garden; by the time he sheds pollen this one has finished.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive ‘Red Sprite’ the moist to wet, acidic soil the species loves, in full sun to part shade, and the little shrub will earn a place three seasons out of four and steal the show in the fourth. Robins, cedar waxwings, and mockingbirds strip the berries through late winter, when the fruit’s bitter compounds have faded and better food has run out, so a planting feeds birds at the leanest moment of the year. A few cut stems bring the same red glow indoors for the holidays. Abundance, as this small holly proves, need not be large to matter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892495475,"sku":"ILE-VERT-RED-SPRI-01G","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilexverticillata_RedSprite_OSU.jpg?v=1762292253"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-southern-gentleman","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Southern Gentleman'","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvery winterberry covered in red is hiding a secret, and his name is ‘Southern Gentleman’. Winterberry hollies are dioecious, male and female on separate plants, and only the pollinated females set the blazing red fruit the species is grown for. No male nearby, no berries. ‘Southern Gentleman’ is the male who makes the show possible, and asks for none of the credit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis particular gift is timing. Winterberries only fruit when a male blooms in step with the female he is meant to pollinate, and the late-blooming clones, ‘Winter Red’ chief among them, need a male who flowers late to match. ‘Southern Gentleman’ is exactly that. He carries the pollen for ‘Winter Red’, ‘Winter Gold’, ‘Sparkleberry’, ‘Cacapon’, ‘Shaver’, ‘Sunset’, and the rest of the late crowd, and he is generous about the work: a single plant will service six to ten females within bee range, roughly forty to fifty feet, so one gentleman keeps a whole hedge in fruit. He came out of the nursery of Bob Simpson in Vincennes, Indiana, who first listed him under the unglamorous working name ‘Late Male’ before the better one stuck. Simpson bred him for a purpose: he introduced ‘Winter Red’ in the same era and selected this male expressly to pollinate her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe distance guidance is a rule of thumb rather than a law. Hollies are pollinated by bees, wasps and ants, not by wind, so what really matters is that an insect can make the trip while both plants are in flower. Isolated female hollies have been recorded fruiting well anyway. Forty to fifty feet is a planning figure, not a fence, and the pairing that matters more is the one between bloom seasons. Match late to late, early to early, and the crop follows.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDo not write him off as merely useful. He makes a vigorous, upright, rounded shrub of glossy dark green that turns soft yellow-green and bronze-purple in fall, six to eight feet each way, and his small spring flowers hum with native bees doing the work he is there for. He will grow in the same wet feet the species loves, full sun to part shade, untroubled by clay or standing water as long as the soil stays acid. Native to the eastern wetlands, \u003cem\u003eIlex verticillata\u003c\/em\u003e is one of our finest winter plants, and this is the one you plant so all the others can shine. Buy him for what he does, not for what he shows, and the red will follow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892757619,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-SOUT-GENT-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexSouthernGentlemanWoodlanders2_jpg.png?v=1750798822"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticillata-winter-red-female","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Winter Red' (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex verticillata\u003c\/em\u003e ‘Winter Red’ is the winterberry other winterberries are measured against. A large, rounded female, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat staying power is why so many gardeners and florists call this 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. The plant came out of the nursery of Robert Simpson in Vincennes, Indiana, selected around 1960 and not formally named and introduced until 1977. Simpson did something else worth knowing: he introduced a male clone alongside this one, chosen specifically to pollinate her, and named him ‘Southern Gentleman’. The two were released as a matched pair, and they still work best that way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry 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 where a male blooms at the same time within bee range, because hollies are insect-pollinated rather than wind-pollinated and pollen does not travel on its own. ‘Winter Red’ flowers late, so a late male, ‘Southern Gentleman’ or ‘Apollo’, is the right partner, set within about forty to fifty feet. The early-flowering ‘Jim Dandy’ will shed pollen weeks too soon and will not do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive ‘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. Expect meaningful fruit about three years after planting. The berries feed robins, waxwings and mockingbirds late in winter, once better food has run out, and carry enough saponin to make them worth admiring rather than eating, by people or by dogs.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057892954227,"sku":"ILEX-VERT-WINT-RED-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-409.jpg?v=1720138849"},{"product_id":"ilex-opaca-male-jersey-knight","title":"Ilex opaca (male) 'Jersey Knight'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex opaca 'Jersey Knight' is a male American holly bred for one essential job, pollination, and vigorous enough to stand on merit besides. Selected from the wild in New Jersey in 1945, this clone carries dark, semi-glossy, olive-green leaves on a strong pyramidal frame that holds branches right to the ground, a full, handsome evergreen that happens to bear no fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmerican hollies are dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate trees, and only females set the red berries the plant is loved for. Without a male in range those females bloom and drop bare, so a pollinizer is not optional but necessary, and 'Jersey Knight' is among the most dependable, blooming in step with popular female clones and setting them thick with fruit. One male will service several females planted nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species is the familiar American holly, Ilex opaca, native across the eastern United States and named for the opaque, matte surface of the leaf that separates the tree from the glossy hollies of Asia and Europe. Tough, long-lived, and adaptable, American holly has anchored Southern and Eastern landscapes for centuries, and named male and female clones take the guesswork out of a tree that varies widely from seed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant 'Jersey Knight' wherever female American hollies need a partner, and let the vigorous, dense, olive-green pyramid double as a screen, a windbreak, or a background evergreen in full sun to part shade and moist, acidic, well-drained soil. A large male such as this one covers a wide radius of females, so a single tree tucked into the back of a planting can light a whole group of hollies with winter berries.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057893052531,"sku":"ILE-OPAC-MALE-JERS-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-104.jpg?v=1720138852"},{"product_id":"ilex-ambigua","title":"Ilex ambigua","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex ambigua\u003c\/em\u003e is the holly almost nobody offers, a medium to large deciduous shrub or small tree of ten to eighteen feet, running open and airy rather than dense. The leaves are small for a holly, thin, often glossy, and finely toothed, turning a soft yellow before falling. Female plants carry berries that are noticeably large for the size of the plant, bright red and handsome in early autumn, though in our experience here they drop rather sooner than the berries of most hollies, so this is a plant for early fall color rather than for a red Christmas. The habit is loose and the bark smooth gray, and the whole effect is closer to a small serviceberry than to the dense evergreen most people picture when they hear holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name carries a small confession. André Michaux described the plant in 1803 as \u003cem\u003ePrinos ambiguus\u003c\/em\u003e, and Torrey moved the species into \u003cem\u003eIlex\u003c\/em\u003e forty years later. \u003cem\u003eAmbigua\u003c\/em\u003e means doubtful or uncertain, applied here because the species so closely resembles several neighboring hollies that even careful botanists hesitate over herbarium sheets. \u003cem\u003eIlex\u003c\/em\u003e itself is borrowed from the classical Latin name of the Mediterranean holm oak, whose leaves the European holly happens to imitate, a piece of botanical name-swapping that has confused people for two thousand years and shows no sign of stopping.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCarolina holly belongs to the sandhills and dry upland woods of the Coastal Plain, from North Carolina and Oklahoma south through Georgia, Alabama, the Gulf states, and into central Florida. This is a plant of poor sand and pine-oak scrub, of exactly the ground that defeats most nursery stock, and that tolerance is the strongest argument for growing it. Deciduous hollies as a group are notably valuable to wildlife: the flowers feed bees in spring and the fruit feeds birds and small mammals through autumn. Unlike the yaupon, Carolina holly carries no caffeine and no ceremonial tradition, which is probably why the species slipped out of the horticultural record almost entirely.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHollies are dioecious, and this is the fact that matters most before you buy: berries appear only on female plants, and only when a male grows within pollinating distance. Plan for a group rather than a single specimen if fruit is the goal. Site in full sun to light shade on dry, sandy, sharply drained ground; heavy wet soil is the one thing Carolina holly genuinely dislikes. Once established the shrub is drought tolerant and largely self-sufficient. Use at a woodland edge, in a sandhill restoration, or in the transitional zone between garden and pine woods, alongside \u003cem\u003eVaccinium arboreum\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eQuercus incana\u003c\/em\u003e. This one is for collectors and native plant gardeners; nobody has ever bought a Carolina holly by accident.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057893150835,"sku":"ILE-AMBI-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilexambigua1.jpg?v=1787156079"},{"product_id":"ilex-cassine-male","title":"Ilex cassine (male)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex cassine\u003c\/em\u003e, the dahoon holly, is one of the most useful evergreen hollies of the South, an upright shrub or small tree with bright green, oval, nearly spineless leaves. Female plants carry heavy crops of small, bright red berries, but this is a male selection, grown not for fruit but as the pollen partner that lets nearby female dahoons set that red winter display.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name carries a deep history and a long-running error. Spanish colonists in sixteenth-century Florida took the Timucua word for the celebrated black drink and wrote it down as cacina, and in 1753 Linnaeus attached that beverage-word to this holly. The plant actually brewed for the black drink was yaupon, \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, named properly by Aiton in 1789 and still the only Southeastern native known to carry caffeine. A 2019 survey of the genus found the stimulant alkaloids in yaupon, yerba mate and guayusa, and specifically failed to corroborate older reports of caffeine in dahoon. So this holly wears the name of the drink without the chemistry behind it, which is a better story than the one usually told.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild dahoon holly keeps to wet ground, the swamps, pond margins, and low woods of the Southeastern Coastal Plain, though the plant takes readily to ordinary garden soil so long as the ground stays acidic. Handsome and adaptable, the shrub grows into a dense, upright evergreen that tolerates both damp sites and the occasional flood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a non-prickly evergreen, dahoon holly is an easy choice for a screen, a hedge, or a specimen where a softer-leaved holly is wanted, and this male plant does double duty: solid evergreen structure, and the pollen a fruiting female clone requires. Set the shrub within about fifty feet of female dahoons for the best berry set, and pair the planting with wax myrtle, sweetbay, and other moist-ground Southern natives.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057893544051,"sku":"ILEX-CASS-MALE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-92.jpg?v=1720138864"},{"product_id":"ilex-latifolia-alva","title":"Ilex latifolia 'Alva'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex latifolia is the holly that stops people in their tracks, an evergreen tree carrying the largest leaves of any holly, glossy, leathery, and up to eight inches long, more like a magnolia or a loquat than the little prickly leaves most gardeners expect. The edges are finely serrated rather than spined, the surface a deep polished green, and on female trees such as 'Alva' tight clusters of small red berries stud the branches through fall and winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Latin latifolia says it plainly, broad-leaved, and the common names follow suit: lusterleaf holly for the shine, tarajo holly for the Japanese name of the tree. Native to China and Japan, the species has long been prized in Asian and Southern gardens alike for that bold, glossy foliage, and the horticulturist Michael Dirr, no easy grader, wrote that although not common in the South, lusterleaf holly certainly ranks among the best of the broadleaf evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Alva' is a fine female clone of the species, selected by Ted Stephens of Nurseries Caroliniana and named for his brother. As a female, the plant sets the red berry clusters that make lusterleaf holly a winter feature, and carries the same vigorous, pyramidal habit and huge lacquered leaves that recommend the species. A named clone such as this one takes the guesswork out of a plant grown from variable seed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive lusterleaf 'Alva' room, because the tree builds into a stately pyramid of twenty-five feet and more. The plant wants sandy, well-drained, acidic loam in full sun to a little shade, and earns a place as a specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or an architectural anchor near a large building, where the outsized leaves read from a distance. Cut branches of berried, glossy foliage make a dramatic holiday green. Set a male holly within range for the fullest fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057893642355,"sku":"ILE-LATI-ALVA-01G","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-100.jpg?v=1720138867"},{"product_id":"ilex-mutchagara","title":"Ilex mutchagara","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex mutchagara is a quiet, graceful evergreen holly from Okinawa, close enough to the familiar Japanese holly, Ilex crenata, that some botanists treat it as a form of that species. The small, glossy, dark green leaves carry fine teeth along the edges but no spines at all, and the habit is open and airy rather than dense, giving the shrub a lighter, more relaxed look than the tightly sheared boxwood-substitutes it resembles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to Okinawa in the far south of Japan, mutchagara answers to the Japanese name shima-inu-tsuge, roughly the island form of the dog-boxleaf holly, a nod to that close kinship with crenata. Like the Japanese holly, this species reads more like a small-leaved boxwood than a spiny Christmas holly, and female plants ripen small black fruit rather than red, a subtle, dark-berried finish in fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA little history from the nursery: we had long labeled our plants of this holly as female, and we are indebted to a sharp-eyed customer who watched the flowers and let us know that they are, in fact, male. So the plants offered here will not fruit, but they make fine, well-behaved evergreens all the same, and a male serves as a pollen source for female hollies nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eProbably about as adaptable as the common Japanese holly, though a little less cold hardy, mutchagara suits the mild Southeast, in sun or part shade and ordinary well-drained soil. The open, graceful frame works as a light informal hedge, a screen, or a fine-textured evergreen in a mixed border, and the small leaves take shearing well where a tidier shape is wanted. Pair the shrub with camellias, aucuba, and other broadleaf evergreens for an easy, layered green.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057894527091,"sku":"ILEX-MUTC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-102.jpg?v=1720138881"},{"product_id":"ilex-cassine-female","title":"Ilex cassine (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIlex cassine\u003c\/em\u003e, the dahoon holly, is an elegant evergreen native of the southern wetlands, and this is a fruiting female, the sex that carries the crop of small, glossy red berries. Unlike the fiercely spined American holly, dahoon holds narrow, smooth-edged, bright green leaves that are a pleasure to plant near a path, and in fall and winter the branches string themselves with scarlet fruit against that clean green. Grown as a large shrub or a small tree, dahoon is one of the most useful evergreen hollies for the South.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA word every holly buyer should hear: this is a dioecious plant, with male and female flowers on separate plants, so a female like this one will only set berries when a male dahoon, or another compatible holly blooming at the same time, grows within reach of the bees. Plant a male somewhere nearby and the reward is heavy, reliable fruit; plant a female alone and the berries will not come. The small greenish-white spring flowers feed bees, and the winter berries feed the birds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name is a two-hundred-year-old mistake nobody has managed to undo. Spanish colonists in sixteenth-century Florida heard the Timucua word for the celebrated black drink, wrote it down as cacina, and Linnaeus attached that beverage-word to this holly in 1753. The plant actually brewed for the black drink was yaupon, \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, which Aiton named properly in 1789. So dahoon carries the name of the drink without the chemistry to match: a 2019 survey of the genus found the stimulant alkaloids in yaupon, yerba mate and guayusa, and specifically failed to corroborate older reports of caffeine in \u003cem\u003eIlex cassine\u003c\/em\u003e. The common name is no clearer. Thomas Walter published \u003cem\u003eIlex dahoon\u003c\/em\u003e in 1788 and the origin of the word has never been established.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDahoon is a plant of swamps, pond edges, and wet flatwoods along the coastal plain from the Carolinas to Texas, and takes happily to wet ground, standing water, and heavy rain where many evergreens sulk. In the garden the plant is more forgiving still, thriving on ordinary moist, acid soil in full sun or part shade, asking mainly that the roots not bake dry. Growth is steady rather than fast, building over the years into a dense, glossy screen. Where dahoon and American holly meet in the wild they cross, and a hybrid found in Florida in 1924 became \u003cem\u003eIlex\u003c\/em\u003e × \u003cem\u003eattenuata\u003c\/em\u003e, the parent of ‘East Palatka’ and of the Foster hollies, which is a larger contribution to American gardens than the species is usually given credit for.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUse \u003cem\u003eIlex cassine\u003c\/em\u003e as an evergreen screen or hedge, a berrying specimen, or a small tree for a rain garden, a pond margin, or any low, wet spot that needs a handsome, non-prickly evergreen. The persistent red fruit brings birds through the winter, and the smooth foliage makes the plant safe and pleasant beside walks and seating. One honest caution comes with the crop: hollies are mildly toxic to people and to dogs and cats, so the fruit is for admiring and for the waxwings, not for eating.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057894953075,"sku":"ILE-CASS-FEMA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilexcassine_female.jpg?v=1784325148"},{"product_id":"ilex-x-attenuata-alagold","title":"Ilex x attenuata 'Alagold'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Foster hollies are among the most planted evergreens in the South, a group of hybrids between the native dahoon, Ilex cassine, and the native American holly, Ilex opaca, raised at Foster Nursery in northern Alabama. They carry narrow, dark, lightly spined leaves on a neat pyramidal frame and fruit heavily in red. 'Alagold' is the exception in color: a yellow-berried seedling of Foster number two, hanging clear amber-gold fruit each winter against dark olive-green foliage, on the same dependable, upright, tree-like holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYellow-fruited hollies have a long hold on collectors, prized for the way the gold reads warm where red reads bright, and for the surprise of a holly that breaks the Christmas-card expectation. 'Alagold' keeps all the working virtues of a Foster holly, the glossy evergreen density, the wildlife value, the clean pyramidal outline, and simply trades scarlet for amber. Songbirds take the fruit through winter, though, as with all hollies, the berries are for the birds and not for people, being mildly toxic if eaten.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFoster hollies came out of Foster Nursery as chance hybrids of two Southeastern natives, and 'Alagold' arose as a yellow-berried seedling within that line. The Foster clones are notably self-fruitful, setting a good crop with no mate in sight, though a male of either parent species nearby only improves the show. That reliability, and the amber fruit, make the plant an easy, distinctive evergreen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Alagold' room to become a small tree, twenty feet and more in time, and use the upright pyramid as a specimen, a tall evergreen screen, or a corner anchor where the gold berries can glow against dark foliage or a winter sky. The color pairs beautifully with red-berried hollies for a two-tone winter planting, and the lacquered, fruited branches cut well for holiday greenery. Full sun to part shade and moist, well-drained, acidic soil suit the plant best.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057895051379,"sku":"ILE-ATTE-ALAG-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1004.jpg?v=1720138894"},{"product_id":"ilex-spinigera-female","title":"Ilex spinigera (female)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex spinigera is a holly with a deep past, a rare evergreen from the Hyrcanian forests that ring the southern Caspian Sea in northern Iran. Small, glossy, dark green leaves edged with fine spines clothe a dense small tree or large shrub, and on female plants such as this one bright red berries glow against the foliage through fall and into winter, the classic holly effect on an uncommonly ancient plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose Hyrcanian woods are living museums. When Ice Age glaciers swept away the broadleaf forests of Europe, a band of them survived along the sheltered Caspian slopes, and Ilex spinigera is one of the relics that came through, a remnant of an ancient Arcto-Tertiary flora and one of only a handful of hollies native to southwest Asia. To grow this holly is to keep a small piece of that vanished forest.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet spinigera means spine-bearing, for the neatly toothed, prickly leaf, and the plant is a close eastern cousin of the familiar English holly, Ilex aquifolium, which it resembles in miniature. Shade is no trouble; in the wild the holly grows in the forest understory beneath taller trees, so dappled light or even fairly deep shade suits the plant well, an unusual and useful trait in an evergreen holly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRarely offered and little known in American gardens, Caspian holly makes a distinctive evergreen specimen for a shaded or woodland-edge spot, a collector's holly, or a quiet, glossy screen in part to full shade and moist, well-drained soil. As a female, this plant needs a male holly in range to set the red fruit. Give the roots shelter from harsh, drying winter wind, and pair the shrub with other broadleaf evergreens under high shade.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057895149683,"sku":"ILEX-SPIN-FEMA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1531.jpg?v=1720138896"},{"product_id":"ilex-serrata-x-verticellata-apollo","title":"Ilex serrata x verticellata 'Apollo'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Apollo' has one job in the garden, and does it superbly: pollination. A vigorous hybrid deciduous holly from the U.S. National Arboretum, crossing the Japanese winterberry, Ilex serrata, with the native American winterberry, Ilex verticillata, 'Apollo' was bred and released specifically as the male partner for the celebrated female 'Sparkleberry', and stands in equally well for 'Winter Red'.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberries carry male and female flowers on separate plants, and a female sets fruit only when a male blooms alongside it, so choosing a pollinizer that flowers at the right time is the whole trick. 'Apollo' blooms late, in step with the late-flowering females, and a single male will service a group of them planted within range. Without that partner the showiest female winterberry stands bare all winter; with it, the branches fill with fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot that 'Apollo' is a plain thing to hide. The hybrid vigor shows in strong, upright growth to ten or twelve feet, new leaves flushed burgundy-red before they settle to green, and a clean yellow turn in fall before the leaves drop. The name winterberry belongs really to the females and their fruit, but 'Apollo' earns a place as a full, leafy backdrop through the growing season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet 'Apollo' where a pollinizer is needed but not necessarily seen: the back of a border, a hedgerow, a damp thicket, or a wildlife planting, within about fifty feet of the female winterberries meant to fruit. Give the roots the moist to wet, acidic soil the whole clan loves, in full sun to part shade. One 'Apollo' quietly lights a whole stand of 'Sparkleberry' and 'Winter Red' with berries for the winter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057895542899,"sku":"ILEX-SERR-VERT-APOL-01G","price":18.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1990.jpg?v=1720138905"},{"product_id":"ilex-cornuta-dor","title":"Ilex cornuta 'D'Or'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex cornuta 'D'Or' is the golden-fruited version of a garden classic, a glossy evergreen Chinese holly hung through fall and winter with large, clear yellow berries in place of the usual red. The dark green, leathery leaves are nearly spineless, most carrying just a single spine at the tip, so the effect is polished rather than fierce, the bright fruit standing out cleanly against the deep foliage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant began as a happy accident. Sometime in the 1950s, on a Burford holly in Columbus, Georgia, a single branch sported yellow fruit rather than red, and the horticulturist Fred Galle spotted the oddity and propagated it at Callaway Gardens. 'D'Or', French for of gold, records the color, and in every other respect the holly matches the familiar 'Burfordii': the same vigor, the same handsome habit, the same single-spined leaf, but with berries the color of amber.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe species behind the sport, Ilex cornuta, is the Chinese holly, native to eastern China and Korea and long grown in the South for glossy evergreen toughness. The epithet cornuta means horned, for the stiff spines that arm the leaves of the wild form, though generations of selection have softened that armament in garden clones like this one. Holly flowers are small and white, easy to miss, but the bees find them, and on a female holly such as 'D'Or' they set the fruit that follows.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRarely offered, 'D'Or' deserves a spot where the yellow fruit can be enjoyed against evergreen green: a sunny to lightly shaded bed with well-drained soil, a specimen by an entry, an unusual evergreen hedge, or a foil for red-berried hollies nearby. Like the standard Burford, the plant can grow considerably larger than a label suggests, so give the roots room. A few cuttings of the golden-berried branches bring something different to a winter arrangement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896001651,"sku":"ILE-CORN-DOR-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1943.jpg?v=1720138915"},{"product_id":"ilex-x-koehneana-ilex-latifolia-x-i-aquifolium-hohman","title":"Ilex x koehneana (Ilex latifolia x I. aquifolium) ‘Hohman’","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex x koehneana, the Koehne or chestnut-leaf holly, is a bold hybrid between the Asian lusterleaf holly, Ilex latifolia, and the European holly, Ilex aquifolium, combining the big glossy leaf of one parent with the classic red berries and spined margins of the other. 'Hohman' is one of the finest of the group for the South: a large, dense, pyramidal evergreen carrying handsome dark green, serrated leaves and heavy crops of bright red fruit, building to twenty-five feet in time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a holly in the grand, Christmas-card manner, the lustrous spined leaves and scarlet berries that the European holly made famous, but on a plant far better suited to Southern heat than true English holly, thanks to the tough Asian parent. The berried branches are the classic holiday green, and songbirds strip the fruit through winter; as with all hollies, the berries feed the birds and not people, being mildly toxic if eaten. A female clone, 'Hohman' needs a compatible male holly within range to fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plant was raised by, or named for, the late Henry Hohman of the famous Kingsville Nurseries in Maryland, a legendary source of choice woody plants in the mid-twentieth century. The Koehne hybrids from that era have proven themselves durable, handsome landscape evergreens across the middle and lower South, and 'Hohman' remains among the best known.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive 'Hohman' the space a large pyramidal holly deserves, twenty to twenty-five feet tall and roughly half as wide, and use the plant as a specimen, a tall clipped or informal hedge, a screen, or a dark evergreen anchor at the corner of a large building. The glossy foliage reads well from a distance and takes shearing; the red winter fruit shows best against the deep green. Full sun to part shade and good, well-drained soil suit the plant, with a male holly nearby for the fullest crop.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896132723,"sku":"ILEX-KOEH-HOHM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2024.jpg?v=1720138918"},{"product_id":"ilex-cornuta-x-aquifolium-edward-j-stevens","title":"Ilex cornuta x aquifolium 'Edward J. Stevens'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Edward J. Stevens' is the male companion to one of the most popular hollies in American gardens, and a robust evergreen quite apart from that role. The plant builds a dense, broadly pyramidal shrub or small tree, to fifteen feet and more, clothed in lustrous dark green leaves with only light spining. In spring the small white flowers open thick with pollen, and that pollen is the whole point.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe story starts in the garden of Nellie R. Stevens in Oxford, Maryland, where a Chinese holly, Ilex cornuta, and an English holly, Ilex aquifolium, crossed on their own and dropped vigorous hybrid seedlings. One became the celebrated female 'Nellie R. Stevens', heavy with red fruit; another, named 'Edward J. Stevens', turned out male. The two share the same fine hybrid parentage, glossy foliage, dense habit, and easy vigor, but only the male carries the pollen the female needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat partnership is the reason to grow this holly. 'Nellie R. Stevens' fruits far more heavily with a compatible male in range, and 'Edward J. Stevens' is the classic choice, blooming in step and setting the female shrubs alight with berries. Carrying no fruit, the male stays cleaner underfoot, an advantage in commercial and institutional plantings where fallen berries and seedlings are a nuisance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven without berries the plant earns a place. The dense pyramidal form and dark evergreen foliage make a fine screen, a tall hedge, a windbreak, or a background layer behind flowering shrubs, in full sun and well-drained soil. Set 'Edward J. Stevens' within pollinating distance of 'Nellie R. Stevens' or other compatible hollies, and one male will service several females.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896329331,"sku":"ILEX-CORN-AQUI-EDWA-01G","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1902.jpg?v=1720138925"},{"product_id":"ilex-myrtifolia-x-opaca-sand-pond","title":"Ilex myrtifolia x opaca 'Sand Pond'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex 'Sand Pond' is a Woodlanders introduction with a good story and better berries, a natural hybrid between two southeastern native hollies: the stately American holly, Ilex opaca, and the fine-textured myrtle-leaf holly, Ilex myrtifolia. The cross carries small, narrow, glossy evergreen leaves midway between the parents, on a plant that colors up each fall with an unusually heavy set of large red berries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant came out of the wild. We found and propagated 'Sand Pond' from a single tree growing in Screven County, Georgia, in a spot where both parent species happened to grow close enough to cross on their own. Spontaneous hybrids like this one turn up now and then where two hollies overlap, and now and then one proves worth naming; this seedling, with the narrow evergreen leaves and generous fruit, was clearly one of those.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn leaf and effect 'Sand Pond' recalls the popular 'Foster' holly, itself a hybrid of Ilex opaca with the dahoon, Ilex cassine, and shares that neat, small-leaved, upright look that has made Foster hollies a landscape staple. The difference is in the fruit: 'Sand Pond' sets the red berries thickly and large, a bright winter show, and we expect the plant to build into a small to medium evergreen tree that may yet become far more widely grown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor a Southern garden 'Sand Pond' offers the best of the pyramidal evergreen hollies in a slightly smaller, distinctly heavy-fruiting package: a specimen, a tall screen, a corner anchor, or a wildlife planting where birds work the winter berries. Give the tree full sun to part shade and moist, well-drained soil, and set a male holly within range to insure the crop. A cut branch of the berried evergreen foliage is a natural for the holidays.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896394867,"sku":"ILE-MYRT-OPAC-SAND-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1822.jpg?v=1720138928"},{"product_id":"ilex-laevigata","title":"Ilex laevigata","description":"\u003cp\u003eSmooth winterberry is similar to the common winterberry, \u003cem\u003eIlex verticillata\u003c\/em\u003e, but is much less common in cultivation, and the differences reward a close look. The finely toothed deciduous leaves are glossy above rather than dull, which gives the whole shrub a cleaner and lighter quality through the growing season. Female plants produce attractive red berries, larger and slightly more orange than those of common winterberry, ripening in autumn and eaten by birds. The habit is upright and open, ten to twelve feet in time on a narrow four to six foot frame, with smooth gray bark and a fine twiggy silhouette once the leaves drop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLaevigata\u003c\/em\u003e means smooth or polished, for those glossy leaves, and \u003cem\u003eIlex\u003c\/em\u003e is borrowed from the classical Latin name of the Mediterranean holm oak, whose foliage the European holly happens to resemble. The species occurs in the Atlantic Coast states from southern Maine to South Carolina, possibly reaching Georgia, and is uncommon in the southern portion of the range. In the wild you find smooth winterberry in acid swamps and seepage areas, very often growing with Atlantic white cedar, \u003cem\u003eChamaecyparis thyoides\u003c\/em\u003e, in a habitat that has itself been reduced to fragments across most of the coastal plain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plants we offer are unsexed seedlings of South Carolina provenance, shared with us by Mike Creel. That matters in two ways. Local provenance means stock adapted to southern heat rather than to a New England swamp, which is not a given with a species whose center of abundance lies well north of here. And unsexed means exactly what it says: hollies carry male and female flowers on separate plants, and there is no way to tell which you have until a seedling flowers, usually in its third or fourth year. Buy three or five if fruit is the goal, and you will very likely end up with both sexes and a good crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn cultivation, plant in acid sandy soil with adequate moisture. This is a wetland plant, entirely happy in ground that stays saturated, and it belongs at a pond edge, in a bog garden, along a ditch, or in the low wet corner where nothing else has thrived. Full sun to part shade; fruit set is heavier in sun. Alkaline soil brings on chlorosis quickly. Pair with \u003cem\u003eChamaecyparis thyoides\u003c\/em\u003e if you want to reconstruct the wild association, or with \u003cem\u003eClethra alnifolia\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eItea virginica\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eCyrilla racemiflora\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eMagnolia virginiana\u003c\/em\u003e for a southern wet planting. This is a collector's and restorationist's holly rather than a landscape staple, and that is rather the point.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896624243,"sku":"ILE-LAEV-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2090.jpg?v=1720138938"},{"product_id":"ilex-coriacea","title":"Ilex coriacea","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex coriacea, the large gallberry, is a tall evergreen holly of the Southern wetlands, close kin to the familiar inkberry but built on a bigger scale, with broader, leathery, dark green leaves and larger fruit. On female plants the berries ripen to a shining black, a quiet contrast to the glossy foliage through fall and winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe epithet coriacea means leathery, for those thick, durable leaves, but the plant is better known to some by another common name, sweet gallberry, and to beekeepers most of all. Gallberry flowers pour out nectar, and the pale, mild, slow-to-crystallize honey they yield is among the most prized in Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, a regional treasure built entirely on these unassuming white spring blooms.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild large gallberry belongs to the wet, acid soils of the Southeastern Coastal Plain, from Virginia to Texas, where the shrub often grows alongside the related inkberry holly, Ilex glabra, in baygalls, pocosins, and low pinelands. The larger leaves and larger berries set the two apart, and both thrive where the ground stays damp and sour.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeldom seen in gardens, large gallberry rewards a spot with moist, acidic soil and a little care: mulch the roots and keep the plant watered, and the shrub settles into an easy, dense evergreen for a pond margin, a rain garden, a wildlife border, or an informal screen. The spring flowers feed bees, the black fall fruit feeds birds, and a female set near a pollinator will carry the fullest crop. Pair the shrub with inkberry, sweetbay, and swamp azalea in the same damp company.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896853619,"sku":"ILEX-CORI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1680.jpg?v=1720138943"},{"product_id":"ilex-verticellata-winter-gold","title":"Ilex verticillata 'Winter Gold'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex verticillata is the winterberry, the native deciduous holly grown not for evergreen leaves but for the astonishing display that comes after they fall: bare gray stems packed end to end with bright fruit, lit up across the dead of winter. 'Winter Gold' plays that trick in an unexpected color, trading the usual fire-engine red for warm gold blushed with soft orange-pink, a glowing, gentler note against snow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinterberry belongs to the wet places of eastern North America, the swamp edges, pond margins, and damp thickets from Canada to the Gulf, and the finely toothed, spineless leaves look nothing like a Christmas holly until the flowers give the family away. The name verticillata, whorled, describes the way those small flowers and leaves cluster along the twigs. 'Winter Gold' arose as a sport of the famous red 'Winter Red', keeping the heavy crop but changing the color.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs with all winterberries, only female plants fruit, and only when a male of matching bloom time grows nearby. 'Winter Gold' flowers late, so a late-blooming male such as 'Apollo' or 'Southern Gentleman' is needed within about fifty feet, not the early 'Jim Dandy'. Get the timing right and one male will set a whole group of females heavy with berries; get it wrong and the branches stay bare.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive 'Winter Gold' the moist to wet, acidic soil winterberry loves, in full sun to part shade, and let the shrub do what it does best: light a rain garden, a pond edge, a wet swale, or a mixed border through the coldest months. Songbirds strip the fruit in late winter, and a few cut branches of gold berries bring something rare to a holiday arrangement. Woodland settlers knew the plant as fever bush, a nod to the folk history behind this quietly spectacular native.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896919155,"sku":"ILE-VERT-WINT-GOLD-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2147.jpg?v=1720138946"},{"product_id":"ilex-paraguariensis","title":"Ilex paraguariensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eIlex paraguariensis is the holly behind maté, the caffeine-rich tea poured from a gourd and sipped through a metal straw across Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and southern Brazil. As a plant, yerba maté is a broadleaf evergreen holly, a shrub or small tree with dark, leathery, serrated leaves, closely resembling the native dahoon holly, Ilex cassine, of the southeastern United States, and carrying the same small white flowers and, on female plants, small red berries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the Guaraní and Tupi peoples of subtropical South America, maté was food, medicine, and ritual long before Europeans arrived, drunk as a stimulant, a digestive, and a general tonic, and shared hand to hand as a gesture of welcome. That custom grew into a daily habit for whole nations, and the leaf, dried and steeped, remains one of the great social drinks of the continent, now carried worldwide for the lift and the antioxidants alike. The medicinal notes below set out that tradition and the research around it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYerba maté remains rare in North American gardens, grown mostly by collectors drawn to plants with real cultural and economic weight. Woodlanders has long sought out exactly this kind of plant, the useful and the unusual, well beyond the ordinary nursery list, and yerba maté sits squarely in that tradition: a working tea plant that also happens to be a handsome evergreen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden yerba maté wants what the wild plant knows: fertile, well-drained, acidic soil, steady moisture, and light shade or sun in a warm, humid climate. The upright, glossy evergreen form suits an edible landscape, a cultural or ethnobotanical collection, or a specimen where the story can be told, and in zones eight and warmer the leaves can be dried and brewed for homegrown maté. Where frost is hard, grow the plant in a large pot and move the container under cover for winter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057896984691,"sku":"ILEX-PARA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IlexparaguariensisOregonStateWoodlanders3.jpg?v=1747854095"},{"product_id":"ilex-vomitoria-lowreys-big-leaf","title":"Ilex vomitoria 'Lowrey's Big Leaf'","description":"\u003cp\u003eYaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern United States, native along the coastal plain from Virginia south to Texas, with outliers into Cuba and the Yucatan, and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The wild plant is prized for fine, dense foliage that shears like boxwood, so a big-leaved yaupon comes as a small surprise. ‘Lowrey’s Big Leaf’ is exactly that: an upright, evergreen selection whose leaves run conspicuously larger and glossier than the norm, giving the whole shrub a bolder, greener texture while keeping all the toughness of the species.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBehind the ornament sits one of the more remarkable plants in American ethnobotany. Roasted yaupon leaves and twigs were the source of the caffeinated black drink that Indigenous peoples of the Southeast brewed for ceremony, council, and trade, and that coastal colonists later took up as a homegrown coffee or tea. Yaupon remains North America’s only caffeine-bearing native plant. The unlovely species name, \u003cem\u003evomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e, comes from a European misreading of the ritual purging that sometimes attended the drink, a charge the holly did not deserve, since analysis of the leaves finds neither emetic nor toxic compounds; the common name is friendlier, from the Catawban ya’pa, a diminutive that means small tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe appeal of ‘Lowrey’s Big Leaf’ is that bolder leaf. Grown at the JC Raulston Arboretum and other collections, the plant builds into an upright large shrub, reaching nine feet and more with age and eventually taller still, dense and well-furnished from the ground. The name points to the Texas plantsman Lynn Lowrey, who found and shared a great many Southern natives, though we have not been able to document the connection to this particular clone and would rather say so than invent the story. Like other female yaupons, these plants set bright red berries in fall and hold them through winter when a male grows nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe heavier texture gives ‘Lowrey’s Big Leaf’ a role the small-leaved forms cannot fill: a lush, glossy evergreen mass for the back of a border, a broad informal hedge, or a green foil behind flowering shrubs and perennials. The leaves take shearing, though the plant is handsome left a little loose to show the larger foliage. Site in sun for the densest growth and heaviest fruit, and set a male yaupon within bee range for berries: our straight \u003cem\u003eIlex vomitoria\u003c\/em\u003e male, or the columnar ‘Will Fleming’ where space is tight. Count on the same salt and drought tolerance that makes yaupon indispensable in hard Southern sites.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42134316417139,"sku":"ILEX-VOMI-LOWR-BIG-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Ilex-vomitoria-Lowreys-Big-Leaf-001-JCRA-11-21-07.jpg?v=1722560304"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/yaupon-holly.oembed?page=3","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}