Episode 118 – A Celebration of Garden Vacations

The reason that your weigela hasn’t flowered is, most likely, due to a lack of sufficient chilling hours there in Florida. Weigela, like lilac, crabapples, and a host of other hardy plants, actually requires exposure to a number of hours between 32°F and 45°F in order to properly set flower buds and bloom. It’s likely that they simply aren’t experiencing that in your area and as a result, aren’t blooming. With that information, you may decide it’s not pulling its weight and that it should be removed. However, if you’d like, weigela can absolutely be rejuvenation pruned. In this process, the entire plant is cut back to short stumps, say 3-5″ above the ground. This completely refreshes the plant, not only controlling its size but also forcing it to produce vigorous, healthy new growth that looks much better than the woody growth it currently has. Rejuvenation pruning of shrubs works because that huge mass of roots functions as an “engine” to fuel growth. Not all shrubs can be successfully rejuvenation pruned – elderberry and most evergreens immediately come to mind – but weigela is definitely among those that can.

This is definitely an unusual situation, as these plants aren’t normally grown together in the same container. That said, it certainly is convenient! But you should plan to separate them this spring, mostly because Berry Heavy Gold holly reaches 6-8′ tall and wide while Mr. Poppins holly is a much more diminutive 3-4′ tall and wide. As such, Berry Heavy is likely to grow faster and bigger and could potentially shade out Mr. Poppins, which would dramatically reduce its flower set and even potentially kill it outright.

For a male and female holly to be suitable pollinators for one another, two things must be true: they must be the same species, and they must bloom at exactly the same time. So it sounds like if you don’t know of a male winterberry holly in your yard, that one in a neighbor’s yard – or perhaps in the wild, as they native to a huge portion of North America – is pollinating your plants. Lucky you! The issue of your Rock Garden holly is a bit trickier. I searched and couldn’t find a species – it is only listed as a hybrid holly. This makes it impossible to tell which species it is and which might pollinate it (I was at least able to ascertain that it is a female variety, so the potential is there!). It’s quite possibly a blue holly (Ilex × meserveae), but since that’s the most widely planted evergreen holly in most of North America, I’d assume that if it were able to pollinate it, a male in some neighboring yard ought to do the trick. So, unfortunately, I’m a bit stuck on a solution for fruit on your Rock Garden holly…fortunately, this super  miniature evergreen holly is such a cool and interesting plant that it merits a spot in the garden, even if you never see a berry. One last thing worth considering: I’m not sure where you are located, but this is definitely not a super hardy holly, so it’s also possible that a male blue holly could pollinate it but that the flower buds are freezing off.