Blue Princess Holly
Ilex x meserveae ‘Conapry’ · a blue holly with red berries
The favourite berrying blue holly, with very glossy, dark blue-green spiny leaves and heavy crops of dark red berries that birds eat through winter. A handsome foundation shrub or barrier. Plant a male such as Blue Prince nearby for berries, and give it acid, well-drained soil out of winter wind.
- Mature size
- 10 × 8 ft
- 3 × 2.4 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 5a–7b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to moist
- Blooms
- Apr–May
Blue Princess Holly at its mature size
A mature Blue Princess Holly grows 8 to 15 feet tall and 6 to 10 feet wide, taller than most people.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension, Purdue Arboretum, Cornell Woody Plants, UConn Plant Database, Monrovia.
Through the year
What Blue Princess Holly looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
In leaf · Year-round
Very glossy, spiny dark blue-green leaves on purple stems, no berries.
Growing Blue Princess Holly
- Grows well in
- The Northeast and the Midwest.
- Growth rate
- Slow
- Good for
- Privacy screen, hedge, foundation planting, and winter interest
- Leaves
- Evergreen
- Native to
- Europe and Japan
Spacing for a hedge
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Blue Princess Holly, that’s about 8 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Blue Princess Holly in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other hollies
Winterberry Holly
Meserve HollyBlue Prince HollyBlue Princess HollyAll drawn to the same scale.