Photo: Richard Webb, CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Smooth Winterberry

Ilex laevigata

Also called smooth winterberry holly, smooth holly.

A deciduous holly of East Coast swamps with glossy leaves that turn yellow in fall and orange-red berries that feed birds through winter.

Wildlife valueTolerates wet soilFall colorWinter interest

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 6–10 ft
USDA zones: 5–8
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Stream banks, swamps and wet flats
Native range: 15 states and the District of Columbia, north to Maine and south and west to Georgia
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Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and the District of Columbia
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Smooth winterberry is a deciduous holly of wooded swamps, pond and lake shores and blackwater streams, mostly on the Coastal Plain from Maine to South Carolina. It is a close relative of our winterberry holly, but its leaves are glossy above, where winterberry's are dull. Its twigs grow as long shoots and short spurs, and its berries are larger and more orange. Maine lists it as a species of special concern, at the north edge of its range, and it is rare in Vermont. The fruit colors the bare twigs from fall into late winter. Mass it in a rain garden, at a pond edge or in a wet hedge, where birds find the berries in winter.

Size, growth and what to expect

Smooth winterberry grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It makes an upright shrub 6 to 10 feet tall and as wide, and a few reach 13 feet. Its finely toothed leaves run about 1.5 to 3.5 inches long and turn yellow before they drop in fall.

Small white flowers open from April in the South into June in the North. Male flowers hang on slender stalks, while female flowers sit almost stalkless. On female plants, orange-red berries about a third of an inch across ripen in September and October and hang on into February. A rare form bears yellow fruit.

It grows wild near the Atlantic coast from Maine to South Carolina, with scattered stands inland. It is common on the Coastal Plain from New Jersey to Virginia and uncommon or rare at the edges of its range. Its home is wooded and shrubby swamps, pocosins, pond and lake shores and small blackwater streams on wet, acid ground.

How to grow Smooth Winterberry

Smooth winterberry does best in full sun and takes part shade. It wants a wet or moist, acid soil of loam, clay, sand or peat, and it stands saturated ground that floods at times. It does poorly in dry soil and with salt. Plant it 5 feet from a wall and set plants 6 feet apart. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Holly seed has a deep dormancy, so sow cleaned seed outdoors in fall, a quarter inch deep under mulch. Expect seedlings in the second or third spring.

Water weekly through the first two summers unless the site stays wet. It has some resistance to deer. It needs little pruning.

Most plants are male or female, and only females bear the berries, so plant three or more seedlings for a male and a female. Bees pollinate the flowers, and birds eat the fruit and spread the seed. As with other hollies, eating the berries can make a person mildly ill.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

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