Magical® Showtime Winterberry Holly

Set the stage and get ready for Magical® Showtime Winterberry Holly!

Get the spotlight ready to show off the Magical® Showtime Winterberry (Ilex verticilata 'Kolmasho') featuring glossy leaves and colorful berries! Spring brings greenish-white blooms and pollinators galore! Deep-green, broad-leaved evergreen foliage fills out all summer and well into fall. It adds gleaming backdrops to all your other plants and architectural structure in garden beds and borders.

Fall frost sets a lovely cast to the foliage before it drops, for added interest to this 3-4 feet tall ornamental, deciduous shrub with four-season interest! In fall and winter, the persistent heavily laden, fiery red-orange fruit clusters are a real show-stopper! Tightly bunching all over each bare stem, they are amazing decorations in the garden or in the home for dried holiday décor.

Showtime is a female Holly and requires a male Winterberry shrub as a pollinator. Nature Hills recommend the Southern Gentleman, Mr. Poppins, Little Goblin Guy, and Jim Dandy male Holly pollinators. One male plant will pollinate up to 10 Magical® Showtime bushes! However, without a male pollinator, you may not see any fruit set.

Planting and Application:

A show off as a hedge and foundation planting, Showtime adds year-round curb appeal that will turn heads! Their tolerance for urban conditions makes them great for along the roadside to act as a barrier between your front yard and the road. Plant one as an accent in your favorite garden urn or on a raised berm to further set this amazing plant apart from the rest!

Patios and balconies, even large planters and containers all welcome these compact, smaller shrubs! Anchor your garden beds or soften the edges of a shed, garage, or home with year-round interest planted on the corners! Try creating a focal point planting in your garden by clustering these in a grouping of 3 or more for a stand-out accent! Seating areas, birdbaths, and outdoor sculptures become the main feature with a skirting of these around their base. Fringe a ring of these around your seating areas, fire-pits, pergolas or garden swing to create an outdoor space you can enjoy all year!

The berries alone in winter make Magical® Showtime take the limelight as a specimen among your winter landscape shrubs and perennial gardens. Plus these are vital food sources for your local songbirds! So be sure to intersperse among all your garden beds and plantings to inject some glowing color into the bleak winter landscape that will have all the wildlife coming for dinner and a show!

Flaunt a row along a fence to enhance (or hide) the view! Create a backdrop by planting a curved row of these colorful shrubs around a focal point, your garden seating, or highlighting your beds and borders! You can also try a staggered zig-zag to create a mass planting on a slope or a large bare patch. The plants will grow to create a low-maintenance groundcover. Adding an amazing designer touch to your landscape!

Their tolerance for soggy soils makes them wonderful for Rain Gardens, streams, and water features. Plant in low areas, moist wooded edges, and where your gutters drain!

• Bright Shiny Green Deciduous Foliage
• Compact Rounded Growth
• Clusters of Bright Orange Berries on Female Plants
• Hardy Native Shrub With Gorgeous Ornamental Value
• Female Shrub Needs 'Southern Gentleman' Male Pollinator
• Floral Arrangements & Winter Décor
• Pollinator-Friendly & Birds Love Them!

#ProPlantTips for Care:

Loving the full sun and even some part shade, Winterberry care is incredibly easy! Thriving in its native soggy swamps of Northeastern USA, these of course will do amazing in your coddled landscape! Magical® Showtime reaches a modest size and is USDA hardy in zones 4 - 9. These grow best in average moisture and even acidic, clay, or soggy soil. It prefers wet soil but is adaptable to a wide range of conditions. A generous layer of mulch helps retain soil moisture as well as insulate the root system from heat and chill.

Winterberry plants are deer resistant, so you won't have to worry about them being decimated by their foraging. Rarely bothered by pests and Winterberry Holly are very disease resistant! Be careful with pruning as the flowers are born on last year's growth - so only prune, or renewal prune out only a few of the oldest, fattest stems on older plants in early spring leaving all of the younger stems in place to flower and fruit.

• Full Sun & Partial Shade
• Tolerant of Wet Sites
• Well-Drained Acidic Soil
• Prune After Flowering
• Deer Resistant

Tough native cultivars, this is a versatile ornamental shrub that will take the stage in your garden! For amazing red-orange berries this winter, you will want to get the Magical® Showtime Winterberry Holly and its male pollinator planted right away so you won't miss out! Call Nature Hills Nursery right away!