“I love winterberries!” says FONTT member Sally Ours Kern.

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is not evergreen, unlike other native hollies such as inkberry and American holly. Still, its bright red berries provide dramatic winter color.

“Years back during an ice storm,” Sally continues, “I found a severed branch with a profusion of winterberries attached.” She placed it in a tree by her kitchen window. “What a merry feast the birds had with these bright red berries!”

After that experience, she and her husband planted several winterberries in their Takoma Park yard. Because berries only form on the females of the species, and then only if a male is nearby, the couple planted four females and one male. Later, they bought another male to help pollinate a female winterberry next-door.

“We love watching birds pluck the nutritious berries from the branches,” Sally says. Many bird species including robins, mockingbirds, and cedar waxwings eat the berries. Small mammals feast on them as well.

Winterberry provides for wildlife year-round. Native bees flock to its small greenish flowers. Its leaves host caterpillars of the Henry’s Elfin butterfly.

Even before the berries appear, winterberry’s graceful, rounded form makes for a pleasant structural element in the garden. It typically grows 6 to 10 feet tall and wide, although smaller cultivars are available. With pollination, the berries start forming in August but are easily overlooked among the shrub’s attractive oval leaves.

Winterberry prefers moist to wet acidic soils in sun or part shade. In the wild, it is often found along streams and in other damp places. Winterberry is adaptable to drier conditions, however, and gardening sources invariably describe it as “low maintenance.”

Winterberry’s native range underscores its adaptability. In the United States, it can be found from Maine to the Florida panhandle and west to eastern Minnesota and Louisiana.

–Meg Voorhes

Photos by Meg Voorhes and Sally Ours Kern