Sounds like 'Pride of Houston' is a selected version of Ilex vomitoria (not a hybrid). Foster hollies on the other hand, are hybrids (parents are Ilex opaca and Ilex cassine). One internet source says this about 'Pride of Houston': Pride of Houston can grow in almost any soil and can live in wet or dry, rich or poor soil. Its leaves are narrow, inch-long, toothed, dark green leaves. This Yaupon can get to a height of 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide. Michael Dirr's reference simply says "medium sized shrub with heavy fruit set". HOWEVER, most sources (including Dirr) only list this as hardy to zone 7. If you're in zone 6b, you might be taking a chance on a whole hedge of these should cold temps come along one winter.

I had the same problem trying to locate Don's Dwarf. I just picked up ten today. I live in a suburb of Atlanta and could not find one garden center that carried them. I searched online for a wholesaler that carried them and called them to see what retail outlets they supplied. They gave me the names of two retail stores that had them. One was within 15 miles of my home and I didn't even know they existed. You may even want to check with the wholesaler I called: http://www.rushingnursery.com They show the Don's dwarf online. They are in Alabama but ship to retail in other states. You can also try: Taylor's Nursery, Inc. � 3705 New Bern Avenue � Raleigh, NC 27610 Phone: (919) 231-6161 Good Luck! Here is a link that might be useful: North Carolina Plant Nurseries

Enjoying nature, I never have tried pruning hollies to a certain size. I let mine get to the full size and shape that they're meant to attain. You probably could prune them to any size and shape you want, but after a few years you end up with big thick branches with leaves sticking out of them and it looks unnatural unless you like tightly pruned hedges. I still can hear Neil Sperry's voice in my head on his radio show saying that if you want to prune shrubs into square green boxes, why not just go out and build a plywood box and paint it green. (grin) Who am I to defy Neil Sperry and try to prune my hollies to a certain arbitrary size? So, mine were spaced as far apart as they needed to be in the first place because I had a good idea how big they'd get and they are fine now---roughly 12' tall and 5-6' apart. Those are the Burford hollies on the south side of the house. They shade the south porch from the summer sun, which is precisely what I wanted them to do. On the east side of the house, which is where the front part of the wraparound porch and the front door is located, I planted Dwarf Burford hollies in 2011 and they seem more like the size you'd want. I wanted a naturally shorter shrub there so we could sit on the porch and look out into the yard somewhat at least. Mine have really had to struggle through drought (i think I planted them in April of 2011 and it stopped raining soon thereafter and didn't rain for 90 days that summer) so they have grown relatively slowly for hollies, but now are about 5' tall and about 3-4' wide and they haven't reached their max size yet. I expect them to top out at around 8' tall and 4' wide, but time will tell. They are a loose informal hedge, which fits with our country Victorian house....all relaxed and sort of cottagey. It is your house, though, and they are your shrubs, so you should plant what pleases you and maintain them in the way that makes you happy. I'm a firm believer that a person's landscape plantings should reflect their tastes and anyone who doesn't like it can just go mind their own business. Well, except, I still have Neil Sperry's voice in my head and I agree with his comments about picking the right shrub to begin with so you don't have to prune your shrubs to an unnatural size or shape. That's just me, though. Some people love formally pruned hedges and they should have what they want. All those years of reading Neil's newspaper columns, his magazine and his books when we lived in Texas (as well as listening to his radio show and attending his Garden Shows) trained me to be a certain way as a younger gardener, and I have his voice in my head the way I have my dad's voice in my head, even though he is long gone. Scott, We have native possumhaw hollies and I love them, but they sucker like the devil and we've got one in the front yard we're going to take out. I hate to take it out because it is the bird feeder tree where we hang the feeders, but we'll just move them somewhere else. It just suckers endlessly and I'm tired of dealing with it. We'll leave the ones on the edges of the woods because it doesn't bother us if they form thickets, and the birds love the berries in late winter and early spring, though they won't touch them until all the other berries are gone. When the cedar waxwings are migrating through in spring, they get pretty much drunk on those fermented possumhaw berries. I feel like pretty much everything we plant has one poisonous part or another, so I plant what I want. If kids are around, I keep an eye on the kids, and teach them not to eat plant parts without checking with an adult first. No child has poisoned themselves on anything we grow yet, so I try not to worry about it. (And I grow several types of brugmansias and daturas, but the spiny seed balls are so hideous that I don't think I have to worry about kids getting hold of them and accessing the seeds.) When we were kids we ran all over the neighborhood and played and we all knew to go home immediately when our parents turned on the front porch light. None of us died or ever got seriously injured or ill. It was a wonderful childhood, and we had a woodland, a neighborhood pond, rocky cliffs to climb, etc. I appreciate that we got to be kids with no one hovering over us too much. Times have changed. And, just so you know, most poisonous plant parts have a bad taste, making it less likely kids will eat them. Or, they will cause you to throw up if you ingest them, so kids are not that likely to eat and swallow them. (However, some dogs will eat anything, so that is one thing to keep in mind if you have dogs.) It is a sad commentary on life in this century that kids cannot play tag. No wonder so many children have a weight issue. It is hard to stay physically fit if you cannot do anything because you might get hurt. That is just sad. Dawn

Well some of the Highclere hollies are either thornless or mature to being thornless, so you can't hold that against them. I feel like these must be common in many English public spaces? So I'm surprised you are asking me about them and not vice versa! Your charming little churchyards, city parks, or even urban roadway verges always seem to be brimming with attractive plants, often BLEs, compared to our weed strewn American equivalents. In fact thinking about the churchyard in Rye has made me think of the Sorbus tree there...and I wonder if perhaps the deciduous plant in berry overdrive (clearly, turned up to 11) in the picture above is some fecund local species of Sorbus. Of course it helps (or hurts...) that even some of your invasive weeds are gorgeous. I understand why those in the UK want to get rid of Balsam there...but good heavens. I have fond memories of seeing those along the Leith in Edinburgh. They are absolutely beautiful. (the Himalayan I. glandulifera...which probably wouldn't survive our muggy summer nights.) BTW your point in the pear thread about us having "land to waste" while western Europe does not, is well taken. It was very amusing for me to see that in northern Italy or Switzerland, little patches of land in the space formed by railroad wyes* - no more than an acre or two - were used for farming. You wouldn't see something like that in the US, ever. What's even more remarkable in the US is how vast swaths once used for farming, are no longer even needed, and reverted to un-managed woodlands. Much of New England, and much closer to me, the entire Elk Neck Peninsula. The yield for standard stuff like corn just couldn't compete with Midwestern farmers and their richer soils. I don't think something like that has ever happened in western Europe, and quite to the contrary, the Dutch turned a lot of a non-arable land into arable land. (Or just seawater - the ultimate non-arable land!) * - apparently, triangular junctions of railways in British English LOL