“Deck the halls with boughs of holly” goes the much-loved carol. And indeed we do: sprigs of red-berried, spiny-leafed branches decorate the mantel, add color to our wreaths, and are tucked into centerpieces on the holiday table. Holly is an indispensable prop in our yuletide festivities.

It all began, as so many of our year-end customs, with the ancient Celts and their ceremonies to bring back the sun at the December winter solstice. Their druids believed that holly remained evergreen to help the earth stay beautiful when other leaves withered; the red berries were symbolic of their goddesses’ blood. The Romans exchanged holly as a token of kindness and friendship; Pliny the Elder thought the tiny flowers of holly could change water to ice (to our knowledge, never tested); the early Christians identified holly with Christ’s crown of thorns, the berries with His blood. Holly has also had a long association with peace and hospitality: the thorny branches hung on the outside of a house were believed to ward off lightning, as well as witches, goblins, and evil spirits. 

There are over 400 different kinds of Ilex, some prickly and some spineless, some evergreen and some deciduous, with berry color ranging from red to yellow to orange, even black. Some hollies become tall trees, some shrubs, some even climb. There are cold-hardy varieties, and others that are less so. What they all have in common is that they like moisture, hate windy exposure, and prefer a humus-rich soil. Most important, there are male and female plants, and to have berries, you need both kinds.

What we prize at the holiday season is Ilex aquifolium or English holly. Claude Lakewold of Olympia, Washington, is the president of the Northwest Holly Growers Association. “They call me the Holly Guru,” he says with a chuckle. As much as a million pounds of English holly, or 90 percent sold nationwide, has been estimated to come from northwestern growers—the moist, moderate climate is ideal. At his Holly Hill Orchard, the oldest holly farm in the country, he grows about 300 English holly trees. “We begin cutting around November 1,” he says. “We get about 100 pounds from the average tree a year.”

Green was the preferred leaf color, until a few years ago when florists began clamoring for variegated foliage to use in wreaths. “There is less of it and so it’s higher priced,” says Lakewold. Whatever color, as soon as they are off the tree, the cuttings are packed slightly moist in plastic and placed in coolers at 35-40 degrees. “We ship all over the country but the holly-less Midwest is our largest market.”

The trouble with Ilex aquifolium is that it doesn’t stand up to our northeastern winters. “Wreaths of it hung outside will quickly turn black,” says Carrie Ricciardi of Young’s Nurseries in Wilton. Robin Crampton and Leslie Kilbourn, owners of Flowers of Distinction in Litchfield, advise their clients about safeguarding tender holly: “If it’s used to decorate outside for a Christmas party, we caution them to bring it inside for the night.”  Fortunately we have our own substitutes for English holly. There is Ilex opaca or American holly, native to our East Coast woods from Massachusetts to Florida. It has matte leaves but somewhat larger berries than its English cousin. “I get all my holly from northern New Jersey,” says Miles Brown of Perennial Gardens in Bedford. “It doesn’t turn black with the cold.”

Perhaps the most successful look-alikes to aquifolium, and the most planted in our cooler gardens, are the Meserve hollies, named after the lady who in the 1950s succeeded in crossing the English holly with an unremarkable, low-growing but very hardy Ilex rugosa. From this endeavor flowed a plethora of new hybrids (many with the label ‘Blue’ because of the bluish sheen on their leaves) that gardeners gratefully embraced for the glossy dark foliage, heavy berry crops, as well as ability to be sheared into attractive hedges. Landscape designer Melissa Orme of Ridgefield has just planted a hedge of ‘Blue Maid’ in a client’s garden. “Meserves are the hardiest for us,” she says.

The hollies that thrive in our climate are rarely if ever grown for commercial foliage. Most of what we use for holiday decoration comes from our own backyards. Alicja Gibson of Kent Greenhouse reports cutting into an overgrown nursery plant when extra branches were needed one Christmas.

In our own garden we have one robust American male holly, but no female. So for red berries we turn to another American native we have several of, the winterberry (Ilex verticillata). From September on, the small bright-red fruits are set off by bright dark-green foliage, which then falls, leaving the berries like shiny beads along the bare stems. Although it originated in Eastern wetlands, winterberry is also called Michigan holly.

And that proves never to trust a name. Legend says Hollywood was named for a stand there of native evergreens called toyon that bears red berries. But a toyon is not a holly, and the name was coined by the wife of the town’s original developer. Still, it has become as powerful a symbol for Tinseltown, as holly has for tinsel time.