Q. I have two Ilex JC
van Tol planted a couple of months ago. They seemed to be doing well, at
present they have plenty of flowers. However some of the leaves on both
have started to turn yellow. I have watered & fed them. Can you advise if
this yellowing is normal for these hollies.
A.
Hollies discard their older leaves
around May, it's perfectly normal and they'll soon be replaced.
Q. I have a 30ft holly tree in my back garden it flowers but has never had
berries. About half of the leaves do not have spikes on them, and
are yellow. The tree is riddled with leaf miner It is dropping about 100
leaves everyday I have been picking them up every day for about a year and
have seen no improvement. Also the trunk of the tree is covered with a green
algae like residue.
The tree is beautiful and I would really like to help it back to health
but I feel it might be to late.
A. Taking your points in order:
In all probability, your holly tree is a male, only females have berries,
hollies are one of the relatively few plants that have males and females.
If you want berries, I'm afraid you'll have to get some female plants which
will be pollinated in order to set berries by your male plant.
Lack of spikes in itself is nothing to worry about, this is a factor
of the variety of holly and also possibly a characteristic of that particular
tree.
Yellowing leaves and so many dropping might be something to worry about
though. All evergreen trees do drop leaves almost continuously as they are
replaced. As it's been going on for a year it may just be that there's so
many as the tree is large. On the other hand, is it getting noticeably more
thread bear? It should be able to maintain an equilibrium of fallen leaves
with newly sprouted leaves.
Hollies are susceptible to attack by leaf miner. If the infestation is
heavy you can spray it with a systemic insecticide, but this will be a fairly
large job and require a sprayer able to deliver large quantities and broadly
- a hand sprayer will either not do the job or build your forearms up so
you could crush a billiard ball. Spray as soon as possible and repeat in
a month or so, maybe again a month after that. If you want to be organic
about it, you could crush the leaf miners in the leaf with your thumb nail,
though I guess this is pretty impractical with the size of the tree. Is
it stressed in any way that might make it more likely to come under heavy
attack?
The algae is nothing to worry about, brush it off with water and a stiff
scrubbing brush if you find it unsightly, though it will come back.
It will also help to feed the tree if it's under attack, I'd use blood
fish and bone meal, or bone meal, you could use inorganic Gromore or something
similar. Depending on what's under the tree, spread the fertiliser in a
circle about 6 feet radius around the trunk, hoe into the soil and water
in liberally.
Q. Is it possible to take cuttings
from holly? I have tried to grow it from a berry but to no avail
A. Semi-ripe cuttings are best, but
they should have been taken from mid autumn to early winter. It's worth
taking a few now if your tree/bush has some excessive growth it won't miss.
Berries should work, but they can be very slow and sometimes lay dormant
for 2 or even 3 years before deciding they've waited long enough. Stratification
in the fridge helps, place them in a bag with some dry sand or vermiculite
and keep them cold but not frozen for a couple of months or longer to fool
them that they've had a long winter and now it really is spring. The berries
should also be dried and not fleshy or they may begin to rot.
Q. I've let my established holly hedge grow both outwards and upwards too
much.
Have had complaints about it obstructing the adjoining footpath
and requests that I cut it back. But to bring it back in line with the boundary
wall behind which it grows I'd lose all the leaves and expose the leafless
core of the hedge. What can I do (and when?) to maintain the hedge but satisfy
the complainants?
A. Holly does respond to drastic pruning,
but as it's slow growing and evergreen such pruning is usually carried out
over 2 or 3 years. The best time to do it is late summer, though, you may
have little choice in this.
Generally the younger and smaller the plant is, the better and quicker
it will respond. Make sure you leave a reasonable amount of foliage on the
plant , i.e. remove no more than about 1/3rd in any one go. If most of the
plants is on your land and facing the "other way" from the wall with plenty
of leaf on that side, it shouldn't matter about cutting back to the brown
leafless core. The 1/3rd applies to the whole plant, whole branches can
be removed. It should recover in time, but it will be slow before the brown
side is green and leafy again - 2 to 3 years maybe, you'll see some growth
in the first year, but it will take time to recover properly.
Q.
I am thinking of purchasing a standard (or maybe it is a half standard)
Ilex aquifolium J C van tol which I have seen in a garden centre. It is
about 5/6 foot high (£150!) It is a lovely specimen, covered in green
berries, and it is would suit where I plan to plant it just as it is. How
can I keep it roughly the size it is, as I note it has the potential to grow
very tall, and I don't want this. If pruning is the answer, when is best and
by how much, please.
A.
Such topiaried specimens are fairly easy
to keep to size, the main thing is to remember to do so and not leave them
for any length of time - a little trimming on a regular basis is the key.
Holly is slow growing so it shouldn't be too much of a race!
How quick it grows depends on how where it is. I'd leave the first
clipping until at least May-June and then another in October to curb the
growth - though holly can take clipping at any time. Just keep on trimming
back to where it is now, tidy up to the neat ball it is at the moment when
it's produced some new shoots.
The important thing is to use secateurs or something similar and snip
through the stems when shaping it, larger shears will cut through leaves
which will then go brown from the edges and leave an awful mess.
Another point - if you are to plant it in the ground rather than being
containerized, I'd leave it until the autumn and this current spell of hot
weather is over. Plants always take a knock-back when planted into the
ground and it will help minimize the shock if you wait until less stressful
times.
Q. Friends of ours have just cut down a large Holly Tree, we asked if we
could have the large trunks & branches as they would make ideal perches for
our parrots. When we got them home we cleaned them off with the pressure
washer, & was surprised that all the bark came off & the trunks are a lovely
clean cream colour. But our main question is are they poisonous to
Parrots?
A. This is a too specific question for me to be able to give
anything but general advice for you to make your own decision - not being a
parrot expert.
Holly berries are poisonous to humans, but not to many animals and birds
that will readily eat them with no ill effect. 20-30 holly berries ingested
in one go is reputed to be fatal to small children, though there is no solid
evidence of this, diarrhoea and vomiting are the usual reactions.
Holly twigs have been fed to cattle in the past as feed. Holly branches
can also be provided for rabbits which may be gnawed and regarded as
something of a tonic.
Holly has been widely used as a decorative wood for centuries with no ill
effects to the people coming into contact with it.
Toxins are usually found in plant leaves, berries and bark.
My feelings are that the warnings about holly being poisonous only really
apply to the berries - and even then it only really applies to humans.
There will always be odd reactions of animals to plants though and holly
is not something that parrots would naturally come across in the wild. Will
they just sit on the branches or rip into them and consume them?
Q. Are all varieties of holly equally beneficial to birds/wildlife?
A. The best one is the native holly, generally the more
ornamental and removed from the basic species a plant is, the less
attractive to wildlife it will be. If you plant holly, remember that many
are male or female, female have the berries, but a nearby male is needed for
pollination.
Q. I'd like a holly hedge and think Ilex aquifolium "Ferox argentea"/hedgehog
holly looks pretty and will stop intruders. How quickly will it grow to 2m+
tall?
A. Slowly, how quickly depends on the specific
conditions. Holly is pretty slow growing and variegated varieties more so.
It will be a fine and attractive hedge, but you're looking at around 10
years to get that high and start to thicken up.
Q. I have several holly bushes, some are standards. There are a few
varieties, such as a light green/cream variegated and a black stemmed
version. The variegated standard has started to loose loads of leaves,
literally about 50+ per day and seems to have some sort of little bug on the
leaves. The others trees have now got this little but on them. Do you
have any idea what it might be and how to treat these shrubs? The are so
lovely it would be a great shame if they died.
A. Holly tends to lose leaves around this time of year,
though they should be replaced with new ones more or less immediately. I'd
spray as soon as you can with a systemic insecticide (check the label),
these are taken up by the leaves and transported around the plant to be
taken up by any pests when they feed on the leaves or sap - not the soapy
ones. The chances are if the hollies are large and established they will
recover, but will look ill for some time and there's the chance the pests
will come back. I'd give them a helping hand with an appropriate chemical
spray.
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