Charlie Pridham wrote:

The different species may have slightly different flowering periods as
they come from all over the world. Not knowing the species of your two
variegated plants its difficult to make suggestions but a good male plant
is 'Silver Queen' and no the use of a plain leafed holly will not cause
any increase in reversion, this is not a major problem with hollies in
any case.

Did the information I gave not give the species of the females (Ilex aq
"Aureomarginata") ? The male is Ilex x meserveae (Blue Prince).


I would be surprised if there were not a male holly around that would do
the job they are surprisingly common plants. I grow a lot of Hollies as
they are shade and salt tolerant, can be clipped and pruned as required
plus look good all year.

There are a couple of hollies around, but I've no idea of the sex.

I originally bought one of them to fill a gap in a fence. Then due to a
number of dead trees which I had felled, the gap got bigger and bigger,
and ...bigger. These hollies are just too expensive to buy lots of and
fill the gap, so I am going to use something cheaper - laurel.

One of the hollies was £600, the other £300. Looking on the internet I
seem to see hollies (not the variegated) type at 2.5 m tall for around
£60, which makes me wonder why I paid so much for these. The largest is
a pretty big plant though - it is as much as I can do to drag the pot
along the ground, and have no chance to lift it. Someone is going to
give me help to put it in. Digging the whole is enough work!

dave