I have researched more Internet pics and have identified the plant I am looking for as Ilex cornuta cultivar Rotunda. As I said, they are wickedly barbed but beatuiful and I could kick myself for not transplanting mine when I moved last year. (They also do well in summer heat.) Still, I was under the impression that hollies don't transplant well. I have gotten into a holly mode lately and looking for various cultivars. Waiting for spring to plant a hedge of Blue Princess (so also looking for a Blue Prince). Thanks for the info! Happy gardening.

If you are going by a similar picture somewhere rather than a nursery tag or other connecting evidence I would not make much of the 'Lily Gold' name as a large number of variegated English hollies have been named in the past. This is one of those groups where certain parties over the years have named and propagated what often appear to be rather slight variations to outside observers. Brownell Holly Farms for instance, which, without checking I remember as being the source for that particular introduction. If cream-margined your "Variegata" might have been 'Argenteomarginata'. The Lake County plant also appears to be an English holly selection, presumably more tolerant of conditions in that region - if they are in fact growing it in fields or other normal situation there - rather than it existing entirely as potted stock wintering in plastic houses or other shelter each year. Out here we don't have to coddle the things through our winters (and summers), in fact English holly is a nuisance plant here, producing numbers of seedlings that produce spiny thickets in parks and other available land in and around local communities.

There's mail order and then there's mail order...I must say that the plants I received from Porterhowse Farms, Coenosium Gardens and Fantastic Plants all looked good and were healthy when they arrived; they were well packed and there was no damage in shipping. None of them were root bound, either. I'm sorry Girard's didn't do as well for you - I can't believe they actually chose an already damaged Ginkgo biloba and then shipped it to you!- but at least they are going to replace the trees, hopefully with better specimens. Like Matt, I am happy to see that your trees from Klehm's (except for the Picea pungens,) look quite nice, as I am expecting an order from them, too. I hope that they will replace your 'Gebelle's Golden Spring' without any fuss. Holly

I find the stems of this plant to be extremely brittle and prone to breakage, you can almost snap a branch off just by lightly brushing against it. The weight of the snow did some damage the first year I had it, last year we made one of those /\ shaped things and covered it, that helped. Other than it being a bit delicate, it's a great plant, very attractive. I have ilex glabra compacta. PS: some birds/animals prefer berries after they've turned soft and old, often the next season when they're still hanging there and you think nothing is interested in them. I've seen this to be true with cedar waxwings + highbush cranberry, and chipmunks + ilex.