Colorful Evergreen Holly Comes in 400 Varieties and Will Thrive in St. Louis

Ok, it’s the first week in November and yesterday there was the telltale-shopping cart at the supermarket that was filled with half-priced Halloween candy. Here’s a suggestion for the retailers: since the candy inside the package is the same, why not just put a Halloween sticker on the package. That way, you can just remove it and replace it with a Christmas sticker and sell it at full price? At the discount store, orange is being replaced with Christmas reds and greens. There was great controversy last year on whether the store should call it Christmas or “Holiday Season.” It’s important stuff like that we have to think about this time of year. I guess there are two schools of thought; there are those who want to extend the season for as long as possible, like retailers, and those who enjoy it for a couple of weeks and then are glad that it’s over. Like parents. I fall into the camp that says that Christmas comes way too early each year, but for those of you who like to be reminded all year long, and also like to garden, you can plant some holly.

Holly comes from the word “holy” and early Europeans used sprigs of holly to honor the birth of Christ. The ancient Druids considered holly, along with another Christmas plant, Mistletoe, as being sacred. They had complex rituals to harvest them with elaborate golden scythes. Holly has been used in ancient medicine to treat tuberculosis, cough, and toothache. The white wood of the plant is carved into the white players on a chessboard, while ebony is used for the black.

The big bushy plant with the waxy leaves and bright red berries that you think of at Christmas is actually the English holly. But, there are some 400 varieties of trees and shrubs in this genus of plant. Most of them are evergreens and work well as ornamental plants in gardens. Hollies can be used as foundation plantings, hedges, screens, and windbreaks.