Looks pretty rough. You should know in a week or so. Mine are just starting to leaf out.

What kind is/was it?

I'm sorry, I don't remember. Put them in about six years ago.

That's too bad. If it were just one, I'd trim off dead stuff, but since it is two -- one on either side of a stairs, you'll likely have to replace, since you'll probably loose some symmetry.

If you can get a closeup of the leaves, I could probably come close to an ID for you. How tall were they?

They are almost 6 ft tall now. I will get you a better pic soon. Thanks Dave. PS Don't know if this could have been part of the problem but they got a fairly aggressive pruning by my tree guy in Oct or so.

Hmm. Sounds like the wrong variety for the space if they needed that much pruning. Where are you exactly and what is your zone? Also what direction is this facing? West? South?

You might want to think about replacing with one of the 'blue' hollies such as Castle Spire or Blue Maid. They are quite dense, upright, and quite hardy.

Dave I thank you for the advice. My holly is coming back! I am watering, feeding, etc.. It started greening up from the bottom up. Anything else I should be doing? I pruned a lot of dead stuff about six weeks ago. Thank you!

whatever has not leafed out by now.. needs to be pruned out ... like everything near the top ... say from the window sill up ... and a little more below ...

once you remove all the dead stuff.. your plant will look 100% better ...

one thing for sure.. it will never look like it used to ... but you can make it better.. thru some proactive pruning ...

it really does look a plant that is too vigorous in the confined space it is in ... if it continues to give you problems over the years ... consider removal ...

ken

Ok, will do. Thx!