No. The one with the berries are the females. For pollination you need a man. Your scrub hollies are either all males which seems unlikely or the berries are getting eaten before you see them.

I had assumed that they are male due to lack of berries. The berries might be eaten but they have not been on previous others. So, if I plant a female and a new male should that work? I really appreciate your info!

If you have a large male population, there is nothing you can do to make them have berries. The males can't make berries. The other option is they are all female with no male pollinator, so plant a male and see what happens.

Since this a self sowing population of holly there has to be a female plant with in bird flight of your woods. Perhaps it is a maturity issue of the self sown plants? Also there is going to be a great deal of genetic diversity in this population. Nursery grown and named plants are selected and cloned because of their high berry production.

If you have no berries, on the tree it is possible that there is only one gender of trees, as nature made them male or female and there is nothing you can do to change it.

However ever if you have multiple trees, the odds are that you have both genders, so my bet is you have a lot of birds and animals that you are unaware of.

For your own interest and to learn about your property, have you consider putting a trail camera out there to see what you do have. I have gotten pictures of two animals that I have never seen near our property in the day light. foxes and opossums. If you do you must reposition it to find the best locations for the camera.

If you have one holly that spread by suckering, you may have a single sex colony. If you have a lot of hollies that look like they are not suckered clones, the chances that they are all one sex decline with the number of individuals.

My English holly doesn't produce many/any berries without adequate water, although it withstands drought well.

We know that we have a variety of animals roaming around out there. They never seemed to bother our previous female. I think that the current hollies are suckered clones. I guess we just need to get a couple of new females.

We have talked about getting cameras. However, I am not sure that I want to know what is out there! Ignorance is bliss. The noises alone freak me out!

Thank you!

The Creatures of The Night eat berries.

age might also be a factor ... sexual maturity if you will ... you speak of them popping up ... how old are they?? .. how many years ago.. did they just pop up ... spring up as your title says ....

otherwise.. what they said ...

since no camera.. you might take a cutting to your county extension office.. and ask them to ID it for you ... that really is the place to start ...

or did you mean you dont want to get trail camera???

ken

Do they bloom? If they do you can tell from the flowers if they are male or female. That’s if they’re definitely hollies. Any chance of pictures?