Hollies are dioecious plants with male & female flowers on separate plants. I am wanting to get a female Eagleston Holly tree but only one. I have various holly shrubs of different varieties. My question is; do I need a male Eagleston or can my female Eagleston be pollinated by the other hollies I have in order to produce berries?

Ann, I'm not familiar with the Eagleston Holly, but at our last house we had a nice East Palatka Holly that turned out to be a female tree. I never did figure out where the pollen came from, but there was no male holly tree within sight of it. Random windblown pollen must have been getting to it from somewhere.

I say 'turned out to be' because the folks that owned the house before us were nutcase pruners, and the holly had been pruned into a torpedo shape when we got there. I grew it out to a nice normal tree shape and it had lots of pretty berries once we stopped pruning it so it could bloom.

Thanks Elaine. I was really wondering if the dwarf youpon holly or the other holly bushes I have would pollinate the Eagleston or if I would need an Eagleston for the Eagleston.

I would think some of them would work. Ilex is Ilex and as long as you're not planning to propagate them from seed, it shouldn't matter. The female will make berries if the pollen is viable. No idea if some of the hybrids like the dwarf Yaupon might be sterile though.

Might be the only one who would know for sure would be a holly tree grower/breeder. Ask your local nursery who their supplier is and get in touch with them?

Other types of trees that need cross-pollination aren't picky about whose pollen they get as long as it's in the 'family' eg. my avocado tree was getting pollinated from another avocado tree with completely different fruit that was nearly a block away. Luckily it was upwind of ours or we would never have had any fruit at all, I guess. Cherries and blueberries are similar in that different varieties will pollinate each other.

Thanks! I think I'm good to go.