Prune Holly bushes and fertilize with Holly-tone

Now is the time to march out to your overgrown evergreen hollies (Ilex x meserveae) and have at ‘em. Some of you may have already pruned these while harvesting their colorful red berries for holiday décor. By cutting back hollies now, you eliminate the possibility of removing emerging white spring flowers that will become dazzling berries later this year. You need both male and female flowering hollies to get ‘baby berries’.
The Berryific and Berri-Magic Royalty series have both male and female plants combined in the same container!  With selections in these series, every holly is adorned with berries versus having a token non-berrying male in the landscape.
Spring is also the time to fertilize acid-loving shrubs with Holly-tone from Espoma. Hollies love this slow-release organic fertilizer, as do other plants like rhododendron, azalea, camellia, many evergreens, blue-flowering mophead hydrangea, dogwood, blueberries and strawberries. Holly-tone is rich in natural organics and enhanced with Bio-tone® microbes. Holly-tone also includes sulfur that naturally lowers the soil pH. To locate a retailer near you that carries Holly-tone, click on Espoma’s web site and enter your zip code.