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Plant of the Week
Burford Holly
Latin: Ilex cornuta 'Burfordii'
The Burford holly has lost some of its luster in the past few years as the
Southern landscape has continued its drift from being more formal and controlled
to more informal and naturalistic in appearance.
Although Burford’s day has largely passed at the nursery, we still see many of
these 15- to 20-foot tall, rounded shrubs in the landscape. They become
especially apparent this time of year as their heavy crop of pea-size berries
turn red. Unlike most hollies, Burford holly does not require a male for
pollination to get good fruit set.
Burford holly is a bud sport of the thorny-leafed Chinese holly that was found
in the early 1900s by Thomas Burford, the superintendent of Atlanta’s West View
Cemetery. The original plant was part of a shipment of seedlings received from
the Department of Agriculture, which had plant explorer Frank Meyer in China
during much of the first 20 years of this century.
Burford differs in that it has only one spine at the end of the 2- to 3-inch
long leaf instead of the seven or nine inches common for the species. Its leaves
are glossy green all summer long but heavy fruit set will often rob some of the
foliage of its lustrous appearance in the winter.
I chose Burford holly for this week’s plant because I wanted to talk about the
weather. Don’t get me wrong, I love this protracted fall too, but it is
beginning to get me concerned. The Burford holly is winter hardy throughout the
state, but it is still bumping up against its northern hardiness limit. I have
seen it freeze to the ground once in the past 25 years over the northern third
of Arkansas.
The damage from this kind of weather comes not from how cold it gets, but how
fast the cold weather arrives. The "Siberian Expresses" or "Blue Northers" drop
the temperature so fast that the plants are not able to properly harden off for
winter and can be killed. The most infamous storm of this type occurred on
Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1940, when the temperature dropped over 70 degrees in
less than 12 hours. The fall of 1940 had been mild with only scattered frosts as
far north as the Canadian border, so when kids went to school or duck hunters to
their blinds that day they were woefully unprepared for what was to arrive
during the day. The storm arrived in midday in the upper Midwest with a quick
drop in temperature, snow and sleet, and a 50 mile an hour-plus wind. Over 150
people died, mostly of exposure or drowning in the next 24 hours.
The plant loss from this massive storm is legendary in horticultural circles and
helped companies like the Stark Brothers select hard kinds of rootstocks that
are still used today. Burford holly, not so widely planted then as now, is just
the kind of plant that would have suffered from this rapid temperature drop. It
is unlikely that a comparable freeze would kill the plant completely, but it
could freeze it to the ground.
Burford hollies are ideal screen plants as long as one has room for their wide
spread. Unpruned, plants may be as wide as they are tall but they tolerate
shearing well and their size can be kept under control by cutting back as
needed. Spring, just before new growth begins, is the best time for severe
pruning but light pruning can be done at any season. Once established Burford
tolerates dry weather without a fuss. Waxy scale, especially in the southern
part of the state, is the only problem that is common with this tough shrub.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
November 19, 1999
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