New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Holly and ivy: Evergreen wreaths a valuable Christmas tradition
“Oh, the rising of the sun and the running of the deer….”
I have been making Christmas wreaths since I was a kid — white pine, princess pine, hemlock and now the holly and the ivy.
The holly grows thick and green in bushes in front of my house. I really need to cut it back, I think every December. In spring, I think.
We planted ivy along the walls of an old barn foundation in my yard. It’s taking over. I need to tear half of it away. In the spring, too.
I get to hum and sing the carol under my breath as I go, acknowledging that of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown. I am happy to mix medieval Christian symbolism with my tromping around the yard. The sun is up, and there are deer tracks in the snow. It’s the winter solstice and Christmas, again and again.
I used to have other evergreens to add to the wreath — berry-laden red cedar and juniper bushes. But my small landscape has changed. The hardwoods are taking over spaces that used to be open.
Where I live used to be a farm, with open fields. When fields are left untended and unmown in Connecticut, they quickly grow back to woods.
Chris Martin, forester for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said that red cedar and juniper are good examples of early-succession growth — trees and bushes that sprout first in an abandoned field.
But the woods that follow tend to shade them out, he said. Maples, oaks, hickories all grow bigger and soak up the sunlight.
Too bad. Red cedars are valuable, he said. Their berries are a food source to wildlife in winter — think cedar waxwings. Cedar posts take a long time to rot
Of all the trees in the wood, the holly bears the crown. I am happy to mix medieval Christian symbolism with my tromping around the yard. The sun is up, and there are deer tracks in the snow. It’s the winter solstice and Christmas, again and again.
and were prized as the best fence posts.
Bill Moorhead, botanist and plant community ecologist with DEEP’s wildlife division, said you can walk in hardwood forests in the state and find downed cedars — the dead wood still persisting after the trees themselves have been shaded out.
Lisa Turoczi, one of the owners of Earth Tones, a Woodbury nursery that specializes in native plants said she often recommends red cedars to her customers for high and dry spots in their yards. They provide shelter in winter, their berries are nutritious and they’re host plants for certain butterfly species.
Moorhead said juniper can stay alive for a long time if they get some sunlight
“It’s a pretty tough plant,“he said.
White pine is another early succession tree that starts growing in open fields, Martin said. But white pines grow tall, he said and can compete with hardwoods. (I have one thriving in the corner of my yard. If the carol was “The Holly, the Ivy and the Pine’ I’d add it to the wreath.) They also have a deep taproot that allows them to survive droughts.
While there are small stands of other evergreens in the state — pitch pine, black spruce, white spruce — Martin said the two main evergreens in the state today are white pines and hemlocks.
Hemlock can grow in shade and poor rocky soil. Because they fill out along steep banks lining streams and rivers, they shade and cool the water in summer, allowing fish and aquatic insects to flourish.
They are threatened by an insect — hemlock wooly adelgids. But Martin said after the first adelgid onslaught, which killed thousands of trees, the existing hemlock stands are holding their own.
There’s another evergreen that brightens the front of my yard — mountain laurel, the state flower. It keeps its leaves year round.
The DEEP’s Moorhead said some evergreen shrubs, like mountain laurel, grow in high acid, low nutrient soils. So they’ve evolved to save energy by not shedding their leaves every fall.
American holly with the sharp green leaves is Ilex opaca. Winterberry, which shed its leaves to better show off its beautiful red berries, is another member of the holly family — Ilex verticillata.
Kathy Krizan, general manager of Hollandia Nursery in Bethel, said when the nursery staff helps plan a garden, they always try to include evergreens — hollies, boxwoods, rhododendrons.
“Otherwise, in winter, you’re just looking at dried up stalks of perennials,” she said.
Camilla Worden, a landscape designer based in Sherman, also said evergreens give people something else — privacy.
“People want them for a screen from their neighbors,” she said.