Good Morning fellow gardeners: Bit of a mystery on my property. Located zone 5b Ontario Holly shrub was on property already when we moved here so I am not sure which variety it is? Why would it only have one single berry? As far as I can tell there is just the one Holly shrub on property and my understanding is that you need male and female Holly to produce berry Any help identifying which variety and how to get it to produce more than one berry would be appreciated Thanks Deb
As would be expected in your cold location it is one of the Meserve holly hybrid selections. These do come in male and female. So you need to get a male variety. Also the pruning back of the outer stems apparent in your pictures will have been preventing a fruit display. Because the flowers and resulting fruits are produced mostly in this outer part of each branch - those buds visible in the center of the first picture are flower buds. These form the year before, to overwinter and open the following spring. With any resulting fruits developing in summer and reddening in autumn. So there really is no time when the entire shrub can be cut back without the elimination of fruiting the next time around taking place.
