Holly Trees

Holly trees seem common around my area.  Most are sharp-leaved.   A neighbor has a very old male one in the back yard.  I had a natural young female 3' one growing in the middle of my backyard (male, no berries; female, berries) when I first moved here 33 years ago.

The backyard was a wilderness of junk trees and vines and after a year, I set about clearing it.  I learned a few interesting things about my yard.  New places are SO fascinating.

First, there was a 10' wide clear path through the overgrowth and several of the junk trees on both sides had bits of barbed wire embedded in the bark.   The direction of the path was from a former farm above and seemed to lead to the swamp across the street.  I say "swamp" because it is mostly one, but there are pools of running water at the edges.  I think that was where a farmer led his cows to drink and graze decades ago.  And had strung barbed wire to keep them on the path to the water.

Second, when I started to dig in the backyard to plant crops, I discovered half was nearly pure sand and half was gravelly clay on one side, and loam on the other (where the trees and vines grew).  I concluded that my lot was once a stream overflow area.

Third, there was a gully (part of the old stream?) on one side of the yard, but it had been cut off when the county constructed a drainage easement along the new sub-divided lots on the new street I had the house built on.  I had the gully filled in with a truckload of "fill" soil (ironically from the former farm above, so the "fill" wasn't bad soil).

So back to the hollies.  It was such hard work cutting out the vines and junk saplings.  I used a chainsaw to cut into the roots in the soil.  Ruined a few blades, but it was worth it.  However, when what you are using is  chainsaw, everything looks like it needs to be cut down.  I managed to cut down my little female 3' holly tree!  All tree trunks look the same at ground level...

Amazingly, it survived.  There is a perverse law of trees that, if you want to kill them by cutting them to the ground, they regrow; and if you so much as "nick" a desired tree, it dies.  Well, this little holly chose a 3rd path.  It regrew with 4 trunks, giving it an odd look.  It is about 20' high today and I love it.

I have another holly in the front yard.  It was adopted rather like a cat coming to its Forever Home.  I had a friend who had an elderly neighbor (Helen) who wanted to renovate an area (she was elderly, but still active).  But she couldn't remove a fence partition panel that shaded the space.  My friend couldn't remove it either.

So he called me.  Ah the joy of "knowing how to do stuff"...

I found a large board in his basement and Helen had a piece of 4x4 sitting around, so I made a lever.  Soaked the area around the post holes.  We levered both posts up!  It wasn't like they just "came out"; we had to push hard.  But they did come up.

So one thing she didn't want was a small holly struggling to survive in the shade of the fence panel.  She wanted us to get rid of it.  Well, I'm a sucker for a struggler, so we dug it out with roots and soil to fit in a bucket my friend had and I planted it in the front yard.

It not only survived, it thrived.  And it has rewarded me with more red berries than any other holly tree I've ever seen.  But, like the Saucer Magnolia, it eventually had those drooping branches.  So I de-limbed it to 8' high.  And still there were drooping branches.  So I took my hedge trimmer, held it over my head and walked round under the tree until everything was 6' high.

It won't harm the tree.  Where I used to work, there was a row of holly trees on the south side.  The Building Manager had them all trimmed into positively unnatural perfect spheres each Spring and they never seemed to be bothered.

I have to mention something.  My friend tried some gardening when he moved in.  But let's just say his design tastes run to "simplicity".  After a few years, his yard looked like a doll house on a pool table.  I would say "sterile", he would say "clean".  But, in any case the friend's neighbor died 10 years ago.  The new residents agreed with my friend (former, BTW), and stripped out every living thing but lawn.

Helen's little 3' holly tree (now 15' high) is about all that is left of her long-time residence there.  I liked her.  She had the best clematis vine flowers I ever saw ("Bea's Knees" or something like that).  She (unlike my friend) liked to grow things.  So when I look at the front yard holly, I remember her by that.

I like remembrances...