Ilex opaca 'Satyr Hill'
Dave in NoVA • N. Virginia • zone 7A
7 years ago
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Comments (18)
davidrt28 (zone 7)
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoDave in NoVA • N. Virginia • zone 7A
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoRelated Discussions
A few pictures of unusual and/or unique Hollies at Rutgers
Comments (26)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...See MoreFormal hedge
Comments (24)Sujiwan, how much width do you have to work with? At the risk of boring my co-forumeers-I've mentioned this idea roughly twice per year for every year I've been here-regular 'Woodward Globe' arborvitae make an excellent screen or never-prune hedge, but will become quite massive in time. I once used an arc of these plants, set about six feet apart, to define the rear of my folk's yard. to say it worked well would be an understatement: Their patio sits a bit higher than where these plants were installed and with their subsequent growth, anyone sitting on that patio is completely screened from behind, but if one should like to see what's going on on the other side, he or she would simply stand up. These things are not done growing however, and will eventually most likely get tall enough to provide a complete screen. I think it key-if one were to adopt such a planting-to absolutely not get into shearing. They look best unsheared and certainly have sufficiently dense growth to perform their function. There are, of course, other similar cultivars and maybe one of those would work even better for you. The one caveat here remains the fact that in addition to height growth, these things are going to become quite wide. +oM...See Moreoakland or oakleaf holly, Ilex x Conaf - Anyone have info?
Comments (34)1818 Federal, here is one photo I snapped this morning, and I'm tossing in another I took last week (it shows our sunflower patch, part of our pond, et al, sorry): So the Oakleaf Hollies are the 2 on your right (the taller is a Hinoki Cypress I fell in love with, it was quite a bit larger, mature). The one to the furthest right has some brighter green twigs sprouting from the top - those just popped up this week. It's starting to form a pyramid shape. The one in the middle (between the furthest oakleaf and the hinoki) formed it's pyramid shape this winter. To see how much it's grown scroll up to my post dated June 27, 2018, last photo, it's the one in the middle. That's a 7 ft. privacy fence (we added later), but the trees are on raised berms... we cheated for height, lol! We ordered the smallest they had, and some have yet to from the pyramidal shape, as seen in the pic below (sorry for all the other stuff, first time to have a backyard and am taking pics of all my new seed-started flowers, pond we added, and patio - not seen here). Still, they've all continued to fill in tremendously, and bush out and up. I've yet to spray the hollies with anything. Speaking of cotton scale, a weeping ficus in the front yard almost died from it... I tried just about everything under the sun and after 2 years of failures it was looking dead. I used Bio Advanced 701615 12 Month Tree and Shrub Protect and Feed Concentrate. End of the 3rd summer the ficus was not only alive, it was the healthiest I'd ever seen it. Easy one-time treatment. I applied it for the next 2 years and stopped after that. No more problems. Then we cut that tree down to replace it with a Weeping Blue Atlas, LOL! I got tired of trimming that darned ficus in the heat! You said you wanted ground space, which is why I suggested 'no' on the Nellie Stevens. They get wide, and you can only trim back hollies to a certain degree. Too much and they not only look bare and woody, but they become prone to disease. Our yard is not large, and since we cut down the leylands, we added a patio, the pond, a couple berms, staggered trees on the berms, and a privacy fence. We're adding a large veggie garden this fall as well. We've decided enjoying the back yard is more important to us than privacy. We did plant a couple maples in discreet areas to hide some of the houses on a hill above us, and a Forest Pansy Redbud... but the house directly behind us added a second story unbeknownst to us, which we discovered after we cut the leylands. It's right in our faces, but I don't care now. I have my grill area, goldfish to enjoy, flowers, and some years down the road, some privacy. Even staggard, those Oakleaf Hollies will eventually grow together and outward, covering the majority of the berms....See MoreIs this Ilex Opaca ?
Comments (4)I think I. opaca is expensive because it grows more slowly than many of the commercial holly hybrids. Not a whole lot of demand for them, except maybe for some of the noted cultivars of opaca, like 'Satyr Hill', which has larger glossier leaves, is female and bears lots of beautiful red berries....See Moredavidrt28 (zone 7)
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agonandina
7 years agodavidrt28 (zone 7)
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoNHBabs z4b-5a NH
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agogardener365
7 years agoDave in NoVA • N. Virginia • zone 7A
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agosam_md
7 years agoDave in NoVA • N. Virginia • zone 7A
7 years agosam_md
7 years agosam_md
7 years agoDave in NoVA • N. Virginia • zone 7A
7 years agosam_md
6 years agodavidrt28 (zone 7)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agospruceman
6 years agodavidrt28 (zone 7)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
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