Gardening
Holly, ivy and mistletoe.
Denis Wood
Holly, ivy, box and yew, native evergreen plants in North Europe, including Britain, must have been familiar in the landscape of our Celtic predecessors. They were brought indoors for decoration at the time of the winter solstice, at first for saturnalian revels and later, after the coming of Christianity, to adorn high festivals of the church, in particular that of the nativity.
The common holly, Ilex aquifolium, is capable of reaching to 60 ft high. The flowers are born in the middle of May, small, creamy white and scented. On most varieties male and female flowers are produced on separate trees so that the plant with female flowers will bear the berries. It makes a beautiful, composed evergreen tree, symmetrically pyramidal when growing in the open, dense by reason of its frequent branching and large everygreen leaves, loOking with its scarlet, sealing-wax berries like a tree in a child's painting book. How beautiful and how strange a little wood entirely of holly trees would be; the bases of the pyramids only. a few feet apart, close and quiet, echoing to the clap of the wings of birds, disturbed at our intrusion.
Although slow growing, holly makes the best of all hedges. For ordinary garden purposes the altaclarensis varieties, Camelliifolia andHodRinsii, are comfortable to live with having few prickly spines. Planted 2 ft apart a holly hedge would stop a bull, and a double row would give pause to an elephant, particularly the variety ferox, the male hedgehog holly which has spines not only at the edges of the leaves but also on the surfaces.
Our native ivy, Hedera helix, is capable of growing to great heights, 100 ft or more, but without support plants will creep over the ground rooting into the soil and making attradtive ground cover in shaded positions. For this purpose the better plant is the Irish ivy, H. hibernica, with large leaves from 3 to 6 ins and very dark green. It makes a beautiful rippling carpet, shimmering in the sunshine glinting between trees. Like holly, ivy is given to much variegation. There is a pale yellow variegated form of H.colchica, the Persian Ivy, and also of H.canariensis, Gloire de Marengo. There is also a number of 'fancy ivies, the small leafed Chicago for instance, its dark green leaves splashed with bronze purple, and Glacier, whose small leaves have white margins.
There are contrary opinions about ivy growing on houses and up trees. Some maintain that it is harmless and others think it strangles trees and damages the pointing of brickwork besides harbouring insects, in particular earwigs. For myself, I prefer not to .see ivy confusing the trunk and outline of a tree. It is pictureque on ruins, useful to clothe fences and walls facing north Or in deep shade and
excellent for ground cover in similar positions.
Mistletoe is also a native evergreen plant but it has not been received in the church with the others because of its deep involvement with rites practised by the Druids — rites which included divination by human sacrifice. Mistletoe has been credited with many attributes — to relieve epileptic fits, to be an aphrodisiac, to induce fertility and to protect against witchcraft. Although rarely seen on evergreen trees and conifers it is responsible for the bunches of light green in the branches of orchard trees in winter, having pairs of narrow opposite leaves like wings, and white berries which are eaten by most fruit eating birds including mistlethrushes. Mistletoe can be easily established by crushing the ripe fruits in mid-May on the undersides of young branches. At Christmas time quantities of it are imported from abroad because home supplies are not enough to satisfy the demands for its essential participation in the now far from lickerish or saturnalian ceremonial, in which embarrassed and perfunctory kisses are exchanged under its placid berries.
The magic has departed,but it is still curious and strange to see in the branches of trees — an apple tree, or high up among limes — bunches of mistletoe, their yellow green leaves whispering the lost enchantments of a forgotten age.
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