The Holly tree is an evergreen and gives us a wonderful colour all year round, which is especially welcome in the depths of winter when everything else around is drab and grey. It is a slow growing small tree, reaching anywhere between 3 and 15m and is quite often grown as a shrub.
The Holly has dark green prickly foliage with a lighter underside and produces beautiful, bright, blood red berries in the winter months, which measure approx. 7-12mm.
The leaves are 50 – 120mm long, wavy with a stiff spine and a waxy, shiny finish, although this may vary on different species and some hollies may have a mixture of spiky and smooth edged leaves.
The Holly flowers May – August and the flowers measure approx. 6mm in diameter. Flowers are white with 4 petals, only the male flowers are fragrant and male and female flowers grow on separate trees.
The bark is silver grey and smooth eventually becoming finely fissured with age.
The Holly is native throughout western and southern Europe and is common in scrub, hedgerows and as a shrub layer in woods.
It is not fussy about soil type, although it will benefit from a slightly peaty soil and will happily grow in both sunlight and shade.