hollies

Question

Hi, I have a number of holly varieties, mostly females as I like berries and the different types have different coloured berries. I also planted silver queens, one about every 4th or 5th holly along the hedge (or so I thought they were anyway) to ensure the females get berries and this does seem to have worked as all the females do indeed get berries on every year. However, I am really mystified by one of my ‘silver queens’. All except one of those currently have lots of flower buds on them and I realised this year that this seems to happen every year. None of my silver queens, of course, ever get berries on as I wouldn’t expect them to having bought them as pollinators for the females (although the silver queens do all look nice even without berries). I just cant understand why this one silver queen never gets any flowers to pollinate the females with. it is also a very vigorous grower compared to the others. It is much taller and bushier than the others now and the branches are very long and arch down a lot whereas the others don’t. The leaf shapes, size and colour and the stems look the same as the other silver queens though. It occupies a position in the garden not dissimilar to the others, they are all in a very long row as a hedge. The soil is the same, they all get the same amount of sun, I feed and water them all the same, I just cant weigh up at all why that one is so different in its growth rate and lack of flowers. Is it possible that that one is not really a silver queen? I cant find any info on the internet about another type of holly that looks like a silver queen but isn’t.

Answer 1

It actually happens more often then you may think. Plants are often miss labeled. If the growth pattern is different then the remaining, I think you may have a different variety.
There are over 400 varieties of Holly!

Your display sounds stunning!