We had to choose holly as our plant of the month for December for its brilliant scarlet berries. With the advent of colder weather you will have to be quick to catch a sight of one of our many holly trees at Paxton House in full berry before the birds nab them all.

Holly (Ilex aquifolium) is an important food source for blackbirds, thrushes and redwings at this time of year and they are at Paxton picking off the berries in the trees and scooping up others blown onto the ground by the weekend’s winds. Slow rotting holly leaves create plenty of leaf litter at the base of the trees, which is shelter for hibernating hedgehogs and toads, both vital pest controllers in our gardens.

Perhaps our native hollies are most popular for their association with Christmas.  This is the time of year when evergreen holly branches are brought into the house to decorate and bring us cheer in the winter darkness.  This is an ancient, pre-Christian, tradition, even the name ‘holly’ comes from an Anglo-Saxon word, holegn, and in pagan times a Father Christmas-like bearded old man called the Holly King was believed to reign over the winter solstice. Holly was important as part of the Roman winter feast, Saturnalia, given as a gift or used in decoration and legend has it that holly wood was used to make the cross on which Christ was crucified. There will be plenty of holly for our Christmas events this year at Paxton and the bright berries and shiny green leaves are providing colour in the winter gardens.