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keithog

Holly plant dying

11 years ago

I brought this small Holly plant early this year or late last year and kept it inside as it was too cold to plant anything at the time. I planted it outside in April when it was starting to get warm and it was doing well, but recently I noticed the leaves were turning a light green and now they have turned brown.

These pics I took a couple of weeks ago, but now all the leaves have turned brown. Does anyone think it will come back or is just completely gone? The weather has been up and down so maybe that could be the problem.

Comments (6)

  • PRO
    11 years ago

    I'm in the UK, sometimes the sun goes around that area and on the wall, do you think the sun might have caused this? I heard that Holly prefer shade.

  • 11 years ago

    The first problem was keeping it indoors. It is almost never too cold in the UK to plant a tree. The only no-no would be if the ground is frozen solid - and that is very rare. Even then it should have been kept outdoors until the ground could be dug. Holly kept indoors would be miserable and weakened by the experience. It is a bone hardy native which can take any weather these islands can throw at it.

    Holly can grow in shade but it does not prefer shade. It will produce a better shaped denser tree in good light. Over here sun on a wall is unlikely to hurt a tree unless it is a South facing wall totally unshaded by anything.

    The soil around the plant looks very dense and damp. Have you been watering it a lot? And when you say you 'brought' it do you mean you dug it up yourself from the wild or you 'bought' it? If you dug it up did it have much root?

    Personally, I'd dig it up and replant somewhere away from a wall (not because of the heat - it just doesn't have enough room there) then I'd leave it alone and wait. Holly is very tough and can recover from much abuse.

    I'll leave the question of whether common Holly is even worth growing in the garden, given it's ubiquity, for you to decide. I am assuming you know that it will only produce berries if it is a female plant?

  • PRO
    11 years ago

    Ok see I didn't know that! I was worried that if I put it out, especially because it was so small that the coldness would kill it so I kept it inside for a few months until it got more warmer. The place where it is, is not too dark and it does get some sun light. I was watering it quite a bit too because before the soil was quite dry around there and it has been quite hot some days. I was thinking water might had been the problem why it was turning brown so that's why I was watering too, maybe I made it worse? No I brought it from a shop, it wasn't a cutting. Yeah there's not a lot of room in my garden now that's mainly why it's there in the first place. There's another place, but it's against a wall too, but there's more room there so I might just put it there. I know that you have to have a female for it to produce berries, I don't know I've always wanted to have a Holly in my garden lol. This is it now

    I don't know if it's alive now tbh as it looks completely dead to me now. I've seen some Holly in a near by park, if I want a cutting how should I do it?

  • 11 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    It looks dead but Holly is tough so I'd leave it until next year. If you bought it didn't it have a label giving its cultivar name? It seems an odd thing for a shop to be selling unnamed common Ilex aquifolium. It is normally sold in bulk for hedging. Was your a named cultivar?

    It would be illegal for you to take a cutting from a park. You can often find seedlings around where there are mature berrying hollies.

  • PRO
    11 years ago

    Ok I'll leave it alone until next year to see if anything happens! Should i move it still or just leave it in it's place? No it didn't, I got it from the poundshop actually just after Christmas and it had no label and just said Holly plant. I brought another Holly too, but it's a different kind and that's been doing well and I brought it the same time as the one pictured. That one didn't have a label either. Oh ok didn't know that, won't be doing it then. I'll see if I can find some seeds, but if not just buy another plant and wait to see if that one comes back to life.