Nellie Stevens Holly
Ilex ‘Nellie R. Stevens’ · an evergreen screening holly with red berries
A fast, dense evergreen holly with glossy, spiny leaves and heavy crops of bright red berries in fall and winter, often set even without a male nearby. It's a favourite for tall hedges, screens and specimens, and handles heat and drought better than most hollies. Give it acid, well-drained soil, away from wet sites.
- Mature size
- 20 × 12 ft
- 6 × 4 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 6a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to wet
- Blooms
- Apr–May
Nellie Stevens Holly at its mature size
A mature Nellie Stevens Holly grows to about 20 ft tall and 12 ft 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, tree-land.com, Monrovia, texastreefarms.com.
Through the year
What Nellie Stevens Holly looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Fruit · Oct–Feb
Abundant bright red berries throughout the glossy foliage.
In leaf · Mar–Sep
Glossy deep green leaves.
Growing Nellie Stevens Holly
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, and the Plains and Mountain West.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Privacy screen, hedge, specimen, rain garden, deer resistant, and winter interest
- Leaves
- Evergreen
- Native to
- China and Europe
Spacing for a hedge
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Nellie Stevens Holly, that’s about 12 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 Nellie Stevens Holly in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other hollies
Needlepoint HollyOakland Holly
Oakleaf HollyNellie Stevens HollyAll drawn to the same scale.