Taking Care of a Holly Bush in Winter

Carol in Massillon asks, “Last spring I planted a holly bush that I bought from you and it’s got wonderful little red berries. Which is what I bought it for. Three questions, with frost coming, do I cover that with a sheet or just let it go? And do I spray it at all with that spray to help things go through the winter, the Wilt Proof. Can I cut a few, just two branches so I can have the red.”

No, you don’t need to cover that one. That plant is designed to go through the shutdown, they’re designed to go through that and not have an issue.

You do want to make sure, if it was freshly planted this year, that there is some moisture present. So you do want to water that all the way through the thanksgiving time frame. Again, the cooler we get, the slower the water evaporates out of the soil, so you’ll water less often. But you don’t want to give up on it until at least the thanksgiving time frame.

If you can use the Wilt Proof (or Wilt Stop) on it, it’s very important you want the plant to be dormant before you apply that. So do not apply that this time of year right now, you want to wait until after thanksgiving but before Christmas. Generally by then we’ve had plenty of cold snaps and the plants have shut down and they’re not actively growing anymore. And that’s when you want to apply it especially to rhododendrons and azaleas. Those two plants really got to have that. The holly, it does help them as well if we have a hard winter. You’ll notice holly leaves sometimes burn back from the tip edge and you’ll see a brown margin around it. This will prevent that from happening. 

Absolutely you can cut a few. Don’t get crazy aggressive with it, especially being first year in the ground. But each year it’ll get bigger and yield more and more for you.

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).