Red Sprite Winterberry

Red Sprite is the winterberry that fits a small yard. Ilex verticillata 'Red Sprite' stays 2 to 3 feet tall and wide, a fraction of the size of a standard winterberry, and still carries berries as large as any of them. Full sun to part sun, hardy from Zone 3 through Zone 9, and it takes three or four seasons to build a full display.

The leaves drop in fall and leave bare stems packed with scarlet berries that hold from October into February, when there is little else showing color outdoors. Cut branches last for weeks indoors.

This is a female plant and requires a male to produce berries. Red Sprite blooms early, so it needs an early-blooming male such as Jim Dandy planted within about fifty feet. One male will pollinate up to five females.

Robins, bluebirds, and cedar waxwings take the fruit in late winter, once repeated freezing has softened it. Winterberry grows wild in swamps and wet woods, so a low spot that stays damp suits it, and it does fine in ordinary garden soil that does not bake dry. It wants acidic soil and the leaves yellow in alkaline ground. Deer leave it alone.