Blue Twins Holly Shrubs for Sale Online

Blue Twins Holly Shrubs are hardy to Zone 6 Give Blue Twins Holly trees ample room, to allow for symmetry of growth. It grows well in a variety of soils, but prefers good drainage. The Blue Twins Holly is great if you need to create privacy for your home. It’s a medium growing tree, growing around 1 to 2 feet per year where it's happy. We recommend planting Blue Twins Holly in a line with about 5 feet apart from each other to create quick privacy. They can be planted at 10 to 12-foot intervals if you don’t mind waiting a bit for privacy. When planting alone the shrub takes on an oval shape. It can be grown as a specimen plant to break sight-lines. Double row plantings of Blue Twins Holly are a great way to not only create privacy but to reduce noise from a busy roadway adjacent to your property. Blue Twins Holly also makes a wonderful backdrop for planting beds. The pleasing dark green color makes flowering plants really standout especially in the winter when it has its bright red berries.

The Blue Twins Holly is widely used as a quick-growing formal hedge. Plant 4 to 8 feet apart, depending upon your desired results. Trim when needed, but we do suggest waiting until after the initial flush of soft spring growth. It can also be pruned in late winter before the onset of new growth. If it is pruned every year, Blue Twins Holly will create a formal dark-green evergreen screen or box-shaped hedge, similar to a Yew hedge. Blue Twins Holly Shrubs can be kept to any height as long as you trim it once or twice a year.

Blue Twins Holly Shrubs can also be planted in clusters in corners of the garden or to hide smaller permanent fixtures in the garden such as well caps or utility boxes. Clusters can be used at the ends of shrub borders or even in the middle to bring symmetry or vertical elements into the garden. Shrub borders tend to be a uniform in height, but by adding clusters of larger evergreen trees you bring variations in height as well as a sense of permanence to the garden

Soil Types:

Blue Twins Holly Shrubs grow well in a wide range of soils, ranging from all sand to pure red clay. When planting in very sandy soils, adding organic matter is always recommended to improve the soil's ability to hold water and nutrients. When planting in hard clay soils, it's best to dig the hole several feet wider than the root system and fill with soft loam soil to give the young Blue Twins Holly a faster, more aggressive root system.

Blue Twins Holly prefer well-drained soils but will tolerate wet soils for short periods of time. Blue Twins Holly should never be planted in soils that are excessively wet for long periods of time. Since Blue Twins Hollies have a shallow root system, weeds and grass growing around the tree will cause the tree to grow much slower until established. Mulching will improve your growth threefold. Mulch not only stops weeds and grass; it will hold soil moisture and maintain a lower, more even soil temperature, stimulating more aggressive root growth.

We recommend when planting your plants to use Bio-tone starter fertilizer by Espoma. We have trialed many so called “starter fertilizers” over the years and have come to rely on Bio-tone exclusively for our own use. Simply mix the recommended amount of Bio-tone into the back fill soil and water in generously when back filled. Bio-tone® Starter Plus is an all-natural plant food that is combined with a stronger concentration of beneficial bacteria along with both endo and ecto mycorrhizae. Basically the “good” fungus in Bio-tone colonizes on the growing roots of your newly planted plant and does not allow disease causing fungus to attack the new roots. It has also shown promise in stimulating the growth of the new roots which means quicker establishment for you plant. After establishment and during the following years we recommend Holly-tone used at the recommended rates. It is also organic and slow release which will feed your shrubs the proper amount of nutrients over a period of time rather than all at once which can burn the root tips and actually have the opposite effect of slowing down plant growth. It also will help to maintain the acid level in the soil that Blue Twins Holly Shrubs need to thrive.

After back-filling and lightly compacting the 50/50 mix of existing soil and compost, give Blue Twins Holly Shrubs a good, deep watering. This is not to be rushed. Most of the water you put on the plant at first will run away from the plant until the soil is soaked. A general rule of thumb is to count to 5 for every one gallon of pot size. For example, a one gallon pot would be watered until you count to 5; a three gallon pot would be 15; and so on. Check the plant daily for the first week or so and then every other day there after. Water using the counting method for the first few weeks. You’ll want to water the bushes regularly after planting until they’ve been well established. We like to tell folks that when watering Hollies or any plant for that matter it's best not to water the foliage of the plant. Water at the base of the plant near the soil line only. Soaker Hoses can also be used to water when planting a long hedge.

Blue Twins Holly Shrubs normally have only a few insects that cause any real problems. Scale is an insect that attacks Blue Twins Holly; they look like little crusty flakes covering the stems and branches. Scale feed on sap causing a chlorosis (yellow) look to the leaves. The most difficult insect to control on Blue Twins Holly is Spider Mites. Spider mites are very small insects that can only be seen with a magnifying glass. Feeding on the sap causes leaves to turn yellow and later brown. Spider mites have become resistant to most of the old chemicals. We recommend using only true miticides for control.