The Times Weekend - UK (2021-11-20)

18 Outside

conditions of an east or north-facing

cold wall. You can grow it freestanding,

but it’s easier on a wall where you never

give it free rein or face the prospect of

taming it out-of-hand. Fertile moist soil

is best; in poor dry soil it starts to look

moth-eaten and the berries are mean.

Once again there are various colours

available — brilliant oranges and reds

and yellows. Of the yellows, the old

variety ‘Flava’ gets an Award of Garden

Merit. ‘Golden Dome’ is small-berried,

‘Saphyr Jaune’ and ‘Soleil d’Or’

particularly large. ‘Golden Charmer’ is

popular at present.

Would you grow it as a hedge, as is

often suggested? Well you can, and it

will still berry moderately, but it’s more

vicious than hawthorn. I’d much rather

have it on a wall, pruning it easily with

gloves and secateurs, than clip it.

as ‘Golden Milkboy’ or ‘Silver Queen’ as

well as your ‘Bacciflava’. Hollies take

almost any soil once established.

However, for good flowering and

berrying, full light is important.

Sometimes, as with white-berried

species of rowan, the birds leave

eating yellow-berried hollies until

last, which is a bonus.

Pyracantha

In a really good year, you can

barely see pyracantha twigs

for berries. Sometimes you’ll

see one grown 3m up the side

of a house. That’s the good

news. Then you have to

remember that pyracantha —

firethorn — is viciously spiny. On

the other hand it’s perfectly prunable

and will perform in the difficult

I

never quite believe people when
they say they don’t like yellow. It’s
such a heartening colour. It lights
up an area, whether it is sunflowers
in August, rudbeckias in September
or crab apples in October.
Or, of course, golden berries,
later still. And if you like your golden
berries, there are two plants you should
seek out for impressive results:
pyracantha and holly.

Holly
A really well-berried golden holly is a
marvellous sight, fruits crusted round

the stem like corn on the cob. Trust me,

it won’t leave you feeling that they

ought to be the typical red colour.

Hollies in the wild are all shades of red,

from pale redcurrant to a cherry brown.

Nature plays games, and yellow is just

one of its tricks.

The usual yellow variety is ‘Bacciflava’,

meaning berried yellow... not tobacco-

flavoured (‘Pyramidalis Fructu Luteo’ is

similar and has an Award of Garden

Merit). It’s a green-leaved variety of

our wild common holly Ilex

aquifolium, tough and vigorous

and perfectly easy to grow.

‘Bacciflava’ is female, of

course. She bears many a

berry so needs a male holly

near by for fertilisation. If you

already have a berrying holly

in the garden, it means you

also have a male close by. If

you have lots of hollies growing

but no berries to be seen, your

male holly bushes are in need of

a yellow female variety.

If you have no hollies near by,

you’ll need to plant a male variety such

Great plants for

golden berries

Stephen Anderton

picks pyracanthas

and a holly that

will glow all

through the winter However, f

berrying,

Someti

speci

eati

las

P

I

b

fo

se

of

new

reme

firetho

tthe other

and will pe

rden

y of

f

ty such

Pyracantha Soleil d’Or, left,

grows easily on a wall

Holly variety ‘Bacciflava’

has golden berries

S AND O/GAP PHOTOS; ALAMY