Yaupon Holly

It’s hard to come up with color in the dead of winter, and that is when we come to appreciate berry season in Mississippi. Many trees and shrubs produce loads of bright red berries, and one of my favorites is yaupon holly. Yaupon holly has very distinctive berries. Sure they’re red and I mean bright candy apple red, but they also have a translucent quality that imparts a gem-like appearance. So in other words yaupon hollies are actually garden jewels that will sparkle in your landscape. The bark is a bright gray and accentuates the berry color. You can see native yaupon hollies growing all across Mississippi along the sides of the road. But there a couple of interesting selections of yaupon holly that are appropriate for the home landscape. Weeping yaupon is a small tree that can grow to about twelve feet high and the branches have a weeping cascading growth habit. There is a dwarf selection called Schillings Dwarf that is a slow growing plant that is perfect for landscape mass or foundation plantings. This plant tolerates pruning and does not bear any fruit, but the new foliage is tinged with burgundy and purple and adds a hint of color. Besides adding beauty to our landscapes and food for the birds, these berries color up at exactly the right time of year and are perfect for dazzling displays of red berries indoors. I’m horticulturist Gary Bachman for Southern Gardening.lan