When it comes to holly, New Jersey leads the nation

13 HGHOLYPX2 SUDOL MURRAY

Jersey Delight is among the many patented holly cultivars introduced by Elwin Orton, a Rutgers professor emeritus who is an acknowledged leader among American holly hybridizers. Credit: Star Ledger file photo

(ED MURRAY)

Holly has a long and fond association with Christmas, its shiny green leaves and bright red berries playing right into the traditional holiday color scheme.

The coastal holly forests of colonial New Jersey were liberally harvested in a cottage industry that served the New York markets and it wasn't long before native stands were at risk. What happened next is really a New Jersey story.

Clarence Wolf, owner of the New Jersey Silica Sand Company in Millville, had been sending holly cuttings to clients and friends since 1926. When wild stocks began to peter out, he planted a 55-acre holly orchard with some 41,000 trees, mostly transplanted from local swamps and forests.

Professor Elwin Orton, a hybridizer of holly for more than 40 years, examines plants at Rutgers Gardens in East Brunswick. Star-Ledger file photo

Dan Fenton took over the Holly Farm and, in 1947, helped form the Holly Society of America in Millville (officially, “Holly City”) with Wolf and Elizabeth White, a woman otherwise known for introducing the nation’s first cultivated blueberry. It’s active to this day with members nationwide and around the world.

Cuttings from the Wolf and White holly collections were planted at the Rutgers Gardens in East Brunswick, which was the largest accumulation of American hollies in the eastern United States for decades until superseded by the Bernheim Arboretum in Kentucky. Enter Elwin Orton, a Rutgers University researcher who has galvanized modern holly breeding since his arrival on campus in the 1960s.

“You start with the best genetic material you can get and go through thousands of seedlings, discarding maybe 98 to 99 percent of them,” says Orton describing the laborious mechanics of hybridization. “It can take 15, 20 years — sometimes more — to grow them out, make selections and come up with something commercially interesting.”

But he’s been exceptionally good at it. Orton’s first introduction in the 1970s, Jersey Princess, was an upright, conical tree bred for darker leaf color and heavy berry set. Following it were Dan Fenton, Jersey Gold with yellow berries, Jersey Knight, a male pollinator, and a series of dwarf clones suitable for rock gardens, including Jersey Jewel, Jersey Midget and Jersey Sprite.

Orton has given the genus the better part of 40 years of close attention. Few individuals have played a more critical role in improving the hollies available in trade, where today you’ll find more than 1,000 cultivars of our native species.

Now a retired professor emeritus, Orton has earned more than 15 patents for new strains of dogwoods and holly that he developed over his long career. The university estimates the retail value of his creations at greater than $200 million and royalty proceeds to Rutgers at more than $1.9 million.He was invested into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 2012.

Besides providing boughs for decking the halls, American hollies are wildlife friendly. In May and June, bees work the blossoms and in late winter, robins, cedar waxwings, wild turkey and 15 other bird species eat the fruit, often in a feeding frenzy. (The foliage is pretty deer resistant, but deer also will take the berries.)

A long stalk deciduous holly with orange fruit is another of Professor Orton's introductions. Star-Ledger file photo

The aristocratic holly was important to American horticulture from the earliest days of the republic — George Washington’s wooden false teeth were made of holly wood, and the maze at Colonial Williamsburg is fashioned of American holly. These plants have fallen out of favor more recently, partly because they grow slowly to marketable size, and don’t always winter over well in containers, now the industry’s standard.

But they tolerate environmental stress and are a lower-care plant in the long run, so they are gaining ground again in eco-friendly gardens. They also have something else going for them: tradition and that certain holiday spirit that no other evergreen can match.

Contact Valerie Sudol: vsudol@starledger.com

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.