Winterberry
Ilex verticillata
also called winterberry holly, michigan holly
A holly that drops its leaves on purpose: bare gray stems packed with scarlet berries from November to February, the brightest thing in the winter garden and the florist trade's favorite cut branch.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Full sun for the heaviest berry set
- Watering
- Moderate to high
- Soil
- Acidic, moist to wet; tolerates swamp and clay
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- USDA zones
- 3a–9a
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- Plant spacing
- 4 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 3 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 6 ft 7 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–16 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
It suckers into a thicket, which suits a wet corner and makes for a good crop of winter berries, and needs a male plant nearby to produce any at all.
The habit is Winterberry’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Recorded toxic
Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by ASPCA.
The ASPCA files the common name Winterberry under Ilex opaca; our catalog names Ilex verticillata.
- When
- Cut berried stems from late November, once frost drops the leaves and bares the show.
- What to look for
- Leaves down, berries glossy scarlet, birds not yet started on them.
- How to harvest
- Cut long straight stems from the thickest of the clump, spreading the cuts so the shrub stays balanced. This is the pruning; no other is needed.
- How often
- One cutting a season, taking no more than a third of the berried wood.
- Storing the crop
- Bare berried stems last a month or more in a dry vase or outdoor pots; in water the berries drop sooner. What you leave, the robins strip in the new year — mildly toxic to people, feast to them.
Like all hollies it is male or female, and only pollinated females berry. The pairing is fussier than American holly: match bloom times ('Jim Dandy' for the early girls, 'Southern Gentleman' for 'Winter Red' and the late ones), one male to five females.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com