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Common winterberry is a deciduous holly. This is a large shrub or small tree that can get 25 ft (7.6 m) tall, but is usually considerably smaller. In cultivation winterberry usually grows as a 6-12 ft (1.8-3.7 shrub. The trunk is short and generally branches close to the ground, and the stout, erect to spreading branches bear slender twiggy branchlets, producing a rounded crown, 8-12 ft (2.4-3.7 m) across. Common winterberry often suckers and grows in a multistemmed clump, and may form a thicket of erect stems. The leaves are variable in size, sometimes even on a single branch, ranging from 1-4 in (2.5-10.2 cm) long and half as wide. They are toothed along the margins and the apices are usually acuminate, which is to say the leaf tips taper to a point and the sides of the taper are concave. Usually the leaves are smooth above and hairy beneath. Like many hollies, winterberry is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. The tiny flowers have four white petals. The fruits are globose red berrylike drupes, about 0.25 in (0.6 cm) in diameter. They usually persist after leaf fall in the autumn, hence the common name. There are a great many cultivars of this popular landscape shrub. 'Winter Red' is perhaps the most popular, and deservedly so. It is a bushy shrub with multiple stems that bear a profusion of large bright red fruits which persist through the winter longer than other selections. 'Nana' (a.k.a. 'Red Sprite') is a dwarf cultivar which bears large berries, but gets only 2-4 ft (0.6-1.2 m) tall. There are forms with yellow and orange fruits which occur occasionally in nature and may be available from native plant nurseries. Ilex verticillata has been hybridized with other deciduous hollies (especially I. serrata, Japanese winterberry), and several selections of these are available to gardeners.
Location
Culture
Common winterberry is a great shrub for wet areas in the landscape. Use it in shrub borders or in masses for its winter berry display. Winterberry is a good choice for an unclipped hedge. It looks great in front of evergreens. The cultivar,'Winter Red' is frequently used in highway plantings. Winterberry branches with their showy red berries are used for Christmas decorations, and there is a commercial industry cultivating the plants for that purpose. 'Oosterwijk' is a cultivar named in the Netherlands and grown there for the branches which are exported around Christmas time. Use them dry (don't put in water) and they will keep for months indoors. Many kinds of birds eat the fruits and often the shrubs are stripped bare before Christmas.
Features Of the 400 species of hollies in the world, only about 30 are deciduous. Steve Christman 11/24/00; updated 11/16/03, 3/23/05
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