Description:

This beautiful holly has a dense, tidy, pyramidal habit that is excellent for screening; requires male pollinator to set fruit; rich, green leaves with golden margins, and abundant red fruit in winter make this a great addition to the landscape

Ornamental Features

Philip Watson Holly is primarily grown for its highly ornamental fruit. It features an abundance of magnificent red berries from mid fall to mid winter. It has attractive dark green foliage edged in gold with hints of white. The spiny oval leaves are highly ornamental and remain dark green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Philip Watson Holly is a dense multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with a distinctive and refined pyramidal form. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and is best pruned in late winter once the threat of extreme cold has passed. It is a good choice for attracting birds and bees to your yard. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Philip Watson Holly is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Hedges/Screening
• Naturalizing And Woodland Gardens

Planting & Growing

Philip Watson Holly will grow to be about 10 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 10 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 50 years or more. This is a female variety of the species which requires a male selection of the same species growing nearby in order to set fruit.

This shrub does best in full sun to partial shade. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. This plant should be periodically fertilized throughout the active growing season with a specially-formulated acidic fertilizer. It is particular about its soil conditions, with a strong preference for rich, acidic soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution, and will benefit from being planted in a relatively sheltered location. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in winter to protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid.