Ilex argentea Marginata - Silver Margined Holly

Ilex aquifolium argentea marginata - Variegated Holly Hedging

Ilex Argentea Marginata, is a large evergreen shrub or a medium tree that excels when planted as a hedge.
Variegated Holly is good for hedges up to about 10 metres high.
Browse all of our other varieties of Holly plants for sale.

Variegated Holly hedge plants are only delivered pot-grown, year round.

Choosing a size:
When you are ordering Variegated Holly plants for a hedge, we generally recommend that you use the smaller plants, graded at 40/60cms. They are cheaper than large plants, easier to handle and they will establish well in poor conditions.
Use larger plants if you want a taller hedge quickly if you want to clip them as topiary or for instant impact as a specimen shrub.
All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the pots aren't measured).

Spacing a Variegated Holly hedge:
Plant Variegated Holly hedging at 2 plants per metre, 50cms apart.

General description of Variegated Holly plants:
A variegated Holly hedge has prickly, glossy green shield-like leaves with distinctive pale yellow to white margins that create a wonderfully vivid foliage display.
As with normal Holly, the females carry bright red berries in late autumn and winter that, although inedible for humans, are both attractive to look at and a vital winter food source for birds and animals.
Being prickly and evergreen, Holly is an ideal hedging plant for security purposes.
A large Holly hedge is a magnificent wildlife habitat providing a home to a wide variety of birds particularly as the sheltered centre of a holly hedge is a desirable hideout for all sorts of creatures.
Because it flowers late, it is also attractive to autumn butterflies and moths when most other plants have given up flowering for the year.
Holly berries ripen slowly through the action of the winter frosts, softening each time they freeze and thaw. This gradually releases food for wildlife throughout the winter.

Young Holly is a target for rabbits and they like to chew straight through the stem, so younger plants will need protection with spirals or tree guards for the first couple of years. The two biggest sizes have thicker stems and are unlikely to be targeted.
Like Yew, it is on the RHS list of plants that are resistant to honey fungus.

History & uses of Ilex aquifolium Argentea Marginata:
In ancient times, the evergreen plants Holly and Ivy symbolised the spirit of men and women respectively as they struggled to survive the winter.
The Holly wreath at Christmas dates back to a pagan custom of making a nest to shelter benign forest spirits during the winter in exchange for their aid with fertility.
A white holly staff or spear was said to give men endurance and resistance to sickness; it was probably quite handy in a fight as well.