The holly is very significant to many Christians, Islams, and Romans. It expresses enjoyment and delight along with good luck and fortune. We use it quite often during the Christmas season to decorate our homes. It can also display friendship and love, and affection and kindness to those we wish to send to during the holiday season. It also helps to restore harmony in a relationship and brings out the love between the individuals.
There are many species of holly shrubs and holly trees, which are distributed among all the continents with the exception of Antarctica and Australia. Holly comes in an array of sizes, from a spreading dwarf shrub that is 6" high to trees that are 70' tall. The shapes can vary from rounded to columnar to pyramidal. Many landscape designers that use the shrubs as attractive foundation plantings or for gardening plot borders. The holly trees and the taller holly shrubs are used as privacy hedges to screen out neighbors or traffic noise or just as striking winter flowers on a lawn.
Some holly trees and shrubs are deciduous, but most often are evergreen. The Winterberry holly, a native of the eastern section of the United States and Eastern Canada is a deciduous plant. Another characteristic of the winterberry holly is its tolerance of various types of growing conditions. While most of the holly cultivars need a well-drained soil, the winterberry's natural habitat is the wetlands. As a result of this the winterberry holly plant is able to grow in well-drained soil or wet soil. Winterberry holly will lose its foliage before Christmas arrives, but the emptiness of this plant with its leaves no longer in view makes the red berries more visable and brilliantly spectacular.
The hollies that are most often seen with their beautiful
evergreen foliage are the English holly and American holly. Some of the varieties of English holly grow very tall, so we should be careful about which ones to buy. Ferox Argentea will reach the moderate height of fifteen feet, with an eight to ten foot spread. American holly is native to the Southeastern section of the U.S. and most of the states along the Atlantic Coast. The USDA Forest Service has remarked that the Pilgrims made note of the fact it was present in Massachusetts when they arrived in 1620. One example of an American holly plant is Mac's Prince which can reach a height of fifteen to thirty feet and have a spread of ten to twenty feet.
Holly, one of the Christmas flowers, is found in many Christmas decorations and Christmas wreaths and it also adds striking interest to the Northern landscape that is usually starved of color. Some herbalists will use the leaves of these
Christmas flowers to treat a fever and other maladies but the berries are capable of causing severe vomiting. There are several bird species that are attracted to holly shrubs including blackbirds and thrushes. The USDA Forest Service has also noted that holly is consumed by cedar waxwings, goldfinches, bobwhites, mourning doves, and wild turkeys during the winter season.
