How To Root Holly Cuttings

Hollies are handsome evergreens with shiny, spined leaves and brilliant red berries. They are a welcome addition to any backyard, providing color and interest in your yard during the bleak winter when the yard looks dull and dead. They are very festive at Christmastime.

If you want to deck the halls come the holidays but you just don't have enough boughs of holly, consider propagating your holly with cuttings. It will only take a few years before the cuttings grow into small trees.

American holly (​Ilex opaca​) is a popular evergreen tree in the United States and Europe, where it is known as European holly. It is admired for its dark green, spiny leaves and bright red berries. Some species of holly have small leaves and can be confused with boxwood, but American holly's leaves are up to 3 inches long. This holly can grow to 60 feet tall and has both a tap root and an extensive lateral root system. It is an appealing tree with gray bark, alternate leaves, and small flowers that attract bees and butterflies.

The flowers develop into bright red fruit in autumn. Both male and females trees are required for the fruit to grow since the flowers must be pollinated. When they appear, these drupes hang on the tree well into winter, providing nurture for wild songbirds when little else is available. They are also eaten by squirrels, wild turkeys, quail, white-tailed deer, field mice, and other small mammals.

It is possible to grow holly trees from holly berries since the purpose of the fruit is to house the seeds of the tree. To do this, collect the fruit in winter, essentially December through February. Strip off the berry flesh and rinse the seeds until they are clean. Plant them in organic compost outdoors and wait for them to germinate. Since you can never be sure that the pollen was from a holly of the same type as the female tree, it is possible that the new, young seedlings will be quite different from the mother tree.

Alternatively, it is possible to propagate holly trees from cuttings. This method of propagation essentially clones the parent plant from which the cutting is taken. You are growing an identical plant from its branch tip.

The procedure to propagate holly from cuttings is not difficult, but it does involve several important steps. The first step is to take cuttings from branch tips in August or September. You want semiripe cuttings, meaning wood from the current season's growth that is partly mature and taken just after a flush of growth. Use a clean, sharp pruner to take 6-inch tip cuttings, removing them from the branches just beyond a bud site.

Remove the lower leaves of each cutting and then plant each one in a small container filled with damp potting soil, ideally even amounts of sand and peat moss. It is easier to do this if you first poke a hole with the back of a pencil. As you site each cutting, gently press the soil around its stem. Wrap each container with a plastic bag and leave the cuttings in a warm room to germinate. Mist the cuttings and the top of the soil regularly to make sure there is sufficient humidity.

The cuttings should show leaf growth in four to six weeks. At this time, remove the plastic and move the cutting to a site with bright, indirect light. Wait until the following spring to transplant the cuttings to your backyard.