silly question about holly

Hi all,

a probably very silly question about getting holly berries... I've got a holly I bought years ago but wasn't sensible enough to keep the label so I've no idea what it is... and it would be quite nice to have some berries but I've no idea if I have a male or female holly so don't want to buy another and end up with two of the same and so still no berries!

I don't know if this is just a really silly question, but is there any way I can tell if it's male or female?

Also do the male and female have to be right next to each other or just in the same area, is there a limit on how far apart to plant them? apologies if this is just a completely ridiculous question but I'm totally clueless!
thanks for any advice!!

 

Hi, no not a silly question , the best chance you have got is to have a look at the flowers when they appear; have a look at this link and it will describe the differences;

http://www.hainaultforest.co.uk/5Holly.htm

If you can take a photo and post it we may be able to ID it as well, especially if its a variegated variety.

As for how close to plant males and females, the closer the better is often said but I have read that within 25ft and they should be fine

 

Didn't I read somewhere that there is a male holly plant called 'queen something' and a female holly called 'King something'! ?

Cheers, Tony.

 

]Some joker decided that female hollies have male names and vice versa.

 

I have Madame Briot , its 10 years old and never a berry !

I have planted Blue Prince (male) 8 feet away , I think it depends on the variety if they have a lot or not as I also grow Alaska , 2nd year in the garden and only 20 inches high had over 50 berries.

My variegated hollies argentea marginata dont produce that many either and if they do the blackbirds strip the bushes clean.

Best of the ones I have are Bacciflava has yellow berries smothered in them and last well into Jan Feb

Have a look at the link I should imagine yours should be one of these listed

http://www.welsh-holly.co.uk/hollies.htm


Spruce

 

When I wanted a Holly I looked round for one with berries already on. Fogot the name of it but it is a variegated one.

Trevor

 

Thank you guys, I honestly thought there was no way of telling! I will have a good look at the flowers when they arrive, it's only flowered for the past two years and I've had it around 5-6 years, but most of that time it's been in a pot but now it's in the ground and looking a lot happier for it!

I think it may be just the bog standard native holly, as I wasn't originally keen on variegated but my tastes change and I think something a bit more showy for the male/female (whichever it is I need!) could be quite nice

 

for Ilex aquifolium, I always thought the prickly leaved ones were female, and the smooth edged round leaves one were male... however when enquiring about that to my old ecology lecturer, I was humiliated and shot down in flames.. so we can be rest assured it's not that.

 

haha you're not wrong.. if anyone is interested in studying Holly (I. aquifolium) we have some woodland areas in our town which are comprised entirely of Holly.. I'm led to believe this is a fairly rare occurrence. I am going out for a walk tomorrow so I will take photos of the said Holly 'forest'. (ps some Holly trees are now coming into flower.. or trying), Ill see if I can spot any major differences). As for the question about holly needing to be next to each other (male/female) Looking at the Holly distribution outside of the Holly 'forests', the distance between some Holly specimens, suggests no.

 

Golden king....female...is a brilliant holly. I keep mine to a conical shape at about 12 feet high and 8 feet across. It has berries too but as a specimen foliage plant it is superb. The best of the hollies I think.

 

Its whats known as Polymorphism, the prickles take energy to make, so once the branches are higher than grazing animals they often stop producing them & just have rounded prickle free leaves.

They'll be stuffed if we introduced Giraffes though.

 

Learnt an interesting thing, or two ... on safari - we had a fascinating guide, a bit like a Zoology lecture in the bush with the best Prof ever!

Acacia evolved thorns to give browsing animals a hard time ... takes energy to make thorns of course ...

Giraffe evolved a long tongue that could be curled around the branch and thorns and strip the young leaves off the branch ...

Acacia then evolved a tannin that made the leaves taste bitter. Took a lot of energy to make the tannin, so it stored it in the trunk and developed a release mechanism once it detected it was being browsed ... so the animal got to browse for a few minutes before the leaves got bitter (must feel like eating Russian Roulette chocolates with every one-in-ten having Chilli in it!!)

I always wondered why Giraffes browsed the leaves on a tree only for a short while before moving on, rather than eating the whole tree.

Acacia then evolved a pheromone that it releases when it is being browsed, all Acacias down-wind then release their tannins when they detect the pheromone. Giraffe now has to browse up-wind.

Elephant just pushes the tree over, and comes back a few days later when it is dead / dying and not producing tannins. Elephant evolved a spongy tongue, so just eats the whole lot vicious thorns and all. Presumably it sorts the thorns out in its mouth rather than swallowing them.

Mind you, best Zoology Prof in the world may have been leading me right up the jungle trail of course

His stuff on Termites was even more fascinating ...