Cultivars
'Albo-marginatum', 'Aurea marginata'
This upright shrub produces leaves with a creamy margin.

'Amber'
This female tree has entire elliptical bright green leaves and bears yellow fruit.

'Argentea Marginata'
This female tree has a broad columnar habit up to 15m (50ft) tall by 4m (12ft) wide with green stems that are creamed streaked. The leaves are pink when young maturing to spiny broad-ovate with white margins and the abundant berries are bright red. The photographs in the gallery were taken at Wisley Gardens UK.

'Argentea Marginata Pendula'
This female tree has a weeping habit with purple stems. The leaves have a cream margin that is spiny and the shape is elliptical. It produces some red berries.

'Bacciflava'
This female tree has dark green ovate leaves with a spiny margin and produces yellow fruit.

'Crispa Aurea-Picta'
This upright tree has spreading branches that form a bushy habit and produces leathery elliptical leaves with yellow-green centres that become dark green along the margins. It is used for colour contrast in border plantings and is suitable for cold regions.

'Ferox Argentea'
This large male tree has an upright conical habit with purplish stems. The thick leathery ovate leaves are contorted with spiny yellow margins. This small tree is planted in borders as a bird haven or for colour contrast and is suitable for cold climates.

'Ferox 'Aurea'     Golden Hedgehog
This upright male plant is bushy and produces leaves that are blotched in gold to yellow-green towards the centre.

'Flavescens'
This female tree has a columnar habit with purplish stems and has leaves that are yellowish in full sun turning mid green in shaded positions. The margin is spiny and the berries are red.

'Golden Milkboy'
This upright male plant has irregular yellowed centre elliptical leaves that have spiny margins.

'Golden Queen'
This male tree has leaves with a golden margin and is broad ovate with a spiny margin.

'Golden van Tol'
This female tree has an upright habit with purplish stems and leaves with a yellow sparsely toothed margin. It produces a few red berries.

'Handsworth New Silver'
This female tree has a columnar habit with dark purple stems and mid-green leaves that have a creamy margin. The fruit is bright red.

'J.C. van Tol'
This broad female tree has purple stems. The puckered dark green leaves are up to 80mm long and the berries are bright red.

'Mme Briot'
This large shrub to small tree has ovate dark green leaves with a bright golden margin and the berries are scarlet coloured.

'Ovata Aurea'
This conical tree has ovate leaves with yellowish margins.

'Princess Pat'
This upright shrub has glossy dark green leaves with spiky margins and produces bright red berry-like fruit.

'Pyramidalis'
This self-fertilising female upright tree forms a narrow conical habit with yellow green stems. The narrow elliptical bright green leaves have an entire to sparsely spined margin and the berries are bright red.

'Pyramidalis Aurea Marginata'
This upright female shrub has narrow elliptical mid-green leaves with a golden margin. The berries are red and profuse.

'Pyramidalis Fructu Luteo'
This female tree has a conical habit with mid-green leaves that have an entire margin. The berries are yellow colour.

'San Gabril'
This upright shrub has a conical habit and produces bright red fruit. The glossy dark green leaves have the occasional pungent lobe that is twisted. It is an excellent plant along a border for screening in cold climates.

'September Gem'
This upright shrub of garden origin has an open habit with mid-green oblong leaves that have pungent teeth along the margin. It produces clusters of deep red berry-like fruit towards the end of the branches and is suitable for small gardens.

'Silvery Milkboy'
This male shrub forms a dense habit and has elliptical leaves with irregular silver central markings. Produces berries occasionally that are scarlet colour.

'Silver Queen'
This upright male tree has a dense habit and broad ovate leaves with spiny creamy white margins. It is slow growing.

'Watereriana'
This slow-growing multi-stemmed shrub to small tree grows to 3 m (10ft) tall and wide with many branches forming a dense rounded habit. It has small rounded spineless leaves that are dark green with an irregular yellow margin and arranged on yellowish green stems.
This shrub prefers an open sunny position and is frosts and drought tolerant. It grows on most well-drained moderately fertile soils and is grown as a specimen or mass planted and trimmed to form a hedge.

Weed Potential
As a weedHolly is invasive in regions with a cool moist climate appearing in habitats including woodlands, forest margins or along cool rainforest gullies. The lower branches can self-layer forming thickets that reduce light inhibiting the regeneration of native tree or shrub seedlings and understorey plants.

It prefers an open sunny position on moist fertile soils and suckers from the base if the upper foliage is damaged. Female plants produce fruit from autumn to winter and germinate during spring. The seeds are dispersed by birds or animals and the plant self-layers.

Controlmethods include physically digging out seedlings and small plants when the soil is moist ensuring that the roots are removed as the slender trunks snap off easily and the plant re-shoots from the base.

Fruiting branches should be bagged and destroyed. Plants can be cut and painted on the stems or drilled and injected in the trunk towards the base with a non-selective herbicide during the growing period. Follow up applications may be requires as the shrub can re-shoots.