VIEWPOINT: 'Tis the season to kill holly

By Froma Harrop

Photo by Charlotte Harrison on Unsplash

What could anyone have against holly? Plenty if you are an ecologist in the Pacific Northwest. This cheery herald of Christmas, with its serrated green leaves and red berries, has become an invader, crowding out native plants on the forest floor. And the most fearsome of the 500 species is the beloved English holly.

Holly joins other beautiful non-indigenous plants now threatening less glamorous natives in the North American wilds. Purple Loosestrife, with its striking spikes of purple flowers, have taken over wetlands. Speaking of purple flowers, the South has Kudzu.

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What makes the holly issue especially prickly is that, unlike Kudzu, it is commercially grown on farms. And so you have lively debate between those whose business is cultivating holly and those who want to kill it.

A cover story in High Country News – “A Festive Plant Runs Amok” – goes into the biological and sociological conflicts. It took a while for states and counties to label holly as a pest, but officially sanctioned holly hunters are now making war in the forests of Washington state and Oregon. Holly cover in those states has about doubled in the last 10 years.

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