My goodness. I might have to buy a Nellie Stevens and carry it next to mine to see the differences. So far my best moment identifying plants was with Fraxinus family ash trees. The "U" shaped bud of the Fraxinus Americana white ash helped me out. Anything similar I should be looking for? The foliage is too variable. My two identical Holly of some kind trees both bloomed lightly last year. Neither has ever had a berry. Bloom time this year is soo early. Of course March was the warmest in 130 year of record keeping. heard it would have been a top ten warm April! My plan is to hunt down dwarf/small varieties of both Ilex opaca and Ilex cornuta and hope I get lucky.

Not many posts about these broadleaved evergreens here and I'll admit while I searched Thuja cultivars forever I hadn't thought of american hollyies even though the Missouri Botanical Garden has a couple small variegated ones right near the dawn redwoods I'm growing a couple generic american holly Ilex Opaca trees near the low spots of my yard. Planted 5 of them on a whim w/o much research as 6 inch bare rooters. Now 5 years later the 3 survivors average waist high. Now I'm thinking about ordering one of the variegated forms to put between a few purple leaf barberries in a similar sunny spot. Its damp enough sometimes the mower leaves muddy tracks but them other "regular" hollies are in a similar area. In my opinion this area will look best during the years the trees are pyramidal and between 2 and 10 feet tall and maybe up to 5 foot spread. A fast grower could only stay for a few years or would overtake or be overtaken b one of its neighbors. Any experience with these? Ilex aquifolium Ferox Arg.Marg. - English Holly Ilex aquifolium Moonlight - English Holly Ilex aquifolium Variegata - Silver Varieg. Holly Ilex aquifolium Crispa Aurea - Varieg.curly-lvd Holly

Of course, Blue Muffins need to pollinated by another compatible viburnum, even though their flowers are complete(both male and female). Search for: viburnum pollination blue (no quotes)in the shrub forum. You will find which ones will work. Candy viburnums might work. I just don't know, but you will need something. Ilex verticillata should have acidic soil (but doesn't need it quite as much as blueberries). If you live in a lot where the ground has been reworked by bulldozers, you will certainly need to ammend it. Is "berry heavy" really "Heavy Berry" holly? If so, that's a different species of Ilex and won't pollinate or be pollinated by the others. Heavy Berry is a very old Ilex opaca cultivar, and one of the cold hardiest, but may not make it up here. It is evergreen and again, acidy soil.

beng - yeah, I TOTALLY do not consider the Larix 100% reliable trees. In fact one I planted in a spot that gets the water from a gutter drain thinking, "surely this will be a goner, but this thing was cheap and I'm just experimenting". Well, it is now > 25' tall and I think if it can survive this hellish summer it can survive anything. That area cycled back and forth from bone dry to swamped with water. I can't remember where I got them that was a cheap source...oh wait I do...I think maybe the Dunkelds came from Musser Forest and the supposed pure kaempferis from the VA state tree nursery. Well, there must have been 5 of the latter and 8 of the former...and here I am left with 2. All the Dunkelds died w/in 3 years...they were absolutely crazy, a couple grew from 1' to 6' in a season! But then they could died of root rot practically overnight. So maybe I really have selected ones with better rot resistance. Hopefully. But I'm planning for the worse. The other, scarecrow one, for example, is shading some prized rhododendrons like 'Sky King', but I'm going to plant a 'back up' of a Taxodium ascendens nearby. NO worry about that dying of root rot! Besides deciduous conifers just make great garden trees, period, I've decided. Because the needles are such a non-event when they fall and they are clearly so storm resistant. BTW this scene of your garden is idyllic. The longleaf pine is far from home in the mountains of MD, but looks happy enough! Gardengal...not a huge fan of pink, myself, since it is kind of the 'lowest state of entropy' in flowering plants...BUT...there just aren't many plants that bloom the way Nerine/Amarines do, right up to the first freezes. It really gives a nice effect when the only other thing seen in 'regular gardens' are mums. Here at least, any Lycoris or Rhodophiala I've tried is much earlier. In the PNW, I would definitely try to get my hands on an 'Afterglow', which is a clear red N. bowdenii X sarniensis hybrid. Alas I 1) don't believe it would be hardy here, and 2) the one time I tried to order this from Cistus, it was the wrong color! It was a smoky pink, making me think it was another cross from that grex along the lines of 'Oberon'. Sean admitted to me there could have been a mix-up of some kind. In any case it tried to grow too much in the winter and died in the PVs. Which my plain bowdeniis survived only to be taken out by the slightly less cold but lacking snow cover PV3. (as I mentioned there was also the extenuating circumstances of have disturbed a plant known not to like disturbance LOL) I have a pure sarniensis that should be red, but it's proving incredibly hard to get it to bloom in a pot around here, which is not entirely unexpected. Summers probably too wet or something. I'm going to repot it in grit this year (possibly today) to try to 'reset' it. I bought it of course to try my hand at recreating the hybrids of Peter Smithers and Terry Jones, it would never be hardy here and is a challenge even in the PNW. Apparently a small # of such offspring inherit the ability to grow in summer from bowdenii, and thus have a chance of hardiness in ideal circumstances. Because they were bred for the cut flower market, I will say that these hybrid Amarines are lasting longer in the garden than Amaryllis belladonna or Nerine bowdenii. The petals just sit there for days and days, seemingly waiting for something LOL. (and btw, they do grow in summer here; my hardiest Amaryllis of all is 'willing' to stay green until well INTO summer, which is probably a reason it is still alive after almost 10 years. That might be the trait I actually selected for. Where winters are a little too cold for these South Africans, they need to store carbohydrates in the summer instead. That was the tragedy of the Brunsvigia grandiflora I tried to grow. When I dug it up after 5 years in a pot and almost 10 in the garden...I was expecting a huge bulb. Nope. It was barely the size of a large gum ball! I realized it could simply never get to flowering size around here and tossed it! No point being sentimental. Now I am trying 10 seedlings to screen for strong summer growing...but it's not looking good. They might have all been collected in a very mild area. I often think, around the world, a lot of people doing seed collection DO NOT want to climb into the coldest mountain areas LOL) Oh well gotta get going...already moved the most tender stuff into my garage, today's the day to do about 1/3 more of it...I'll let hardier stuff ride out one more mild spell we are supposed to have and then do the rest of the around Thanksgiving. On top of my ca. 250 potted plants, had to place an emergency "last call" order from Joy Creek, of course!