Ilex verticillata 'Winter Red' (female)

Ilex verticillata ‘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.

That 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.

Winterberry is a deciduous holly of eastern North American wetlands, native from Canada to the Gulf along swamp edges, pond margins, and wet woods, and the finely toothed, spineless leaves give no hint of holly until the flowers open. Only females fruit, and only 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.

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