Description:

This beautiful holly has a dense, tidy, pyramidal habit that is excellent for screening; requires male pollinator to set fruit; emerging copper foliage matures to a rich dark green; abundant red fruit in winter makes this a great addition to the landscape

Ornamental Features

Centennial Dragon Holly is primarily grown for its highly ornamental fruit. It features an abundance of magnificent red berries in late fall. It has attractive dark green evergreen foliage which emerges coppery-bronze in spring. The spiny oval leaves are highly ornamental and remain dark green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Centennial Dragon Holly is a dense multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with a distinctive and refined pyramidal form. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and is best pruned in late winter once the threat of extreme cold has passed. It is a good choice for attracting birds and bees to your yard. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Centennial Dragon Holly is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Hedges/Screening
• Naturalizing And Woodland Gardens

Planting & Growing

Centennial Dragon Holly will grow to be about 15 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 8 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 50 years or more. This is a female variety of the species which requires a male selection of the same species growing nearby in order to set fruit.

This shrub does best in full sun to partial shade. You may want to keep it away from hot, dry locations that receive direct afternoon sun or which get reflected sunlight, such as against the south side of a white wall. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is particular about its soil conditions, with a strong preference for rich, acidic soils. It is quite intolerant of urban pollution, therefore inner city or urban streetside plantings are best avoided, and will benefit from being planted in a relatively sheltered location. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in winter to protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid.