As winter rains and cold really begin to bite, all the soft growth of summer fades, dries or collapses, and gardeners are left with what can look like something of a wasteland. Evergreens can provide marvellous structure at this time of year. The once-fashionable conifer and heather bed can look very out of place in lowland southern Britain, but, for me at least, holly and ivy never do.
Common holly (ilex aquifolium) is a member of a plant family containing over 500 species. By no means all of them have the well-known, often painfully spiny leaves, nor are all evergreen, while their range is world-wide from India, Micronesia and the Amazon rain forest to Siberia, the mountains of Japan, and, of course, Britain.
Ilex aquifolium can grow to a height of 25 metres (82 feet), but fortunately, most holly varieties respond very well to pruning, so are easy to keep in check, even in a small plot. Several varieties have received the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit, including “Golden Queen”, confusingly a male variety, with grey/green shaded leaves margined in bright yellow, “Ferox argentea” (spines on the leaves as well as around the edge, plus a good silvery margin), and “J C van Tol”, which has the advantage of being virtually prickle-free, as well as self-fertile: many varieties are single sex (dioecious), needing one of the opposite sex varieties grown nearby to ensure berries. There are also many hybrids with other holly species available, including Ilex x altaclerensis (bred at Highlere Castle, as in Downton Abbey), “Golden King” (a female variety, of course) being one outstanding cultivar. For something a little different, try one of the varietals of Ilex x meservae, which have a beautiful blue cast to their leaves. If you have box hedging that has been attacked by the dreaded Box Blight, the small-leaved Japanese species ilex crenata is an excellent replacement.
Before the arrival of turnips, young holly leaves were frequently used as animal fodder, and one species, Ilex paraguariensis, is otherwise known as yerba maté, used to make the eponymous tea-like drink popular in South America (several species of holly are rich in caffeine and other stimulants, including the aptly-named Ilex vomitoria, a native of south-eastern USA).
Ivy is much maligned, and by and large undeservedly so. Many species spread by aerial roots, but these can only damage walls if the mortar is in a poor state anyway (though beware its attempts to get under roof tiles or gutters – there it is a pest), while most trees manage to outgrow its “attentions”. It also supplies useful shelter for roosting and nesting birds, especially during winter, its flowers are an excellent late source of pollen for bees, and many of our garden birds eat its black fruits. There are about 12 to 15 recognised ivy species, all native to the Old World, mainly Europe and north-west Africa. Like ilex aquifolium, some varieties have become pestilential garden escapes in North America. In a dark corner the shine of its leaves can be a great bonus (I grow Hedera algerensis “Ravensholst” in such a situation) and many varieties are useful in hanging baskets, particularly in shade, or as ground cover – in another gloomy corner I have the small-leaved “Yellow Ripple”, which really stands out. Should you have a beech tree, ivy is one of the few things that will grow in its shade.
How did these two plants come to be linked in the well-known Christmas carol of my title? For once, this song has genuine folk origins, nineteenth-century versions claiming it was first published as a “broadside ballad” in the early eighteenth century (though not always with the tune familar to us today). The clinging nature of ivy led to it becoming a symbol for constancy in books about the “language of flowers” popular in Victorian times, and the prickles and berries of the holly easily lend themselves to Christian symbols of the crown of thorns and the blood of Christ. The identification of Christ with the holly and his mother Mary with the ivy echoes pre-Christian “contests” between the two plants as tussles between male and female.
Holly and ivy as part of Christmas church decoration also have a history dating back to at least the sixteenth century, while their similar use in the home had to be carefully judged: should the ivy predominate it meant the lady of the house wore the trousers, while an abundance of holly showed that the paterfamilias kept them firmly on himself!