Latin for Gardeners
February’s Native Maryland Plant
Ilex glabra (L.) A. Gray
(EYE-lecks GLAY-bruh)
Common Name: Inkberry
It’s February, the ground is still cold and mostly brown, covered with a thick layer of leaves that dropped months ago – but not Inkberry leaves. This adaptable Coastal Plain shrub that is growing in many places across my yard guarantees they’ll be some green in my landscape year-round.
Evergreen Inkberry makes for a welcome addition to almost any site and can be used on slopes or in swales, in sun or shade, sand or clay. It requires slightly acidic soil to prevent chlorosis¹ and well-draining soil to prevent fungal disease. Ilex glabra provides berries and year-round cover for birds; it is a larval host plant for Henry’s Elfin butterfly (Callophrys Henrici) and its inconspicuous flowers feed many pollinators - importantly it’s also host to a plasterer (aka cellophane or polyester) specialist bee, the Colletes banksi.²
Ilex glabra is dioicous, there are male and female plants, both are required to produce berries and nurseries do not label the sex of this plant. Because this plant can grow to 10’, many cultivars were created that offer several shorter options – all cultivars are female. Most nurseries offer ‘Shamrock’, a popular cultivar that after 8 or so years can become leggy, losing the attractive fullness of leaves at its base; in my experience, plants in full sun tend to stay fuller longer. ‘Gembox’ is the shortest cultivar that I grow, it has retained its fullness and small stature of 2 ½’ after 8 years and is useful for providing evergreen in very small places.
Inkberry plants that become leggy can be ‘thinned’ or vigorously pruned to produce a fuller plant – late February through early March is recommended to stimulate a full-year of new growth quickly. Thinning involves removing a select number of branches (<1/3ʳᵈ) while deep pruning means cutting the entire plant to ~10”. I’ve chosen to deep prune the Ilex glabra along my front porch multiple times; they are planted in layers so reducing the height of one plant doesn’t impact the privacy the others provide - the result has been better than anticipated. To keep branches from breaking it’s also good practice to remove snow from the leaves of evergreen plants.
Spring is just around the corner and I’m anticipating many pollinators. In the meantime, I’ll be watching the birds in my yard flit in and out of the branches of Ilex glabra – a highly beneficial plant for many reasons.
¹ yellowing of leaves
² Short-tongued bees that line their brood with cells of a cellophane-like substance.
https://www.discoverlife.org/20/q?search=Colletes
Alison Milligan – MG/MN 2013
Watershed Steward Class 7/Anne Arundel Tree Trooper
Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional (CBLP)