Ilex Crenata Green Hedge native to East Asia is commonly known as Holly Japanese Green Hedge or Box Leaved Holly. It does not have the typical prickly leaf that we expect from a holly plant and is a true alternative to Box hedging, avoiding the risk of suffering from box blight. It is a smaller type of Holly hedge, with glossy dark green small crenate edged leaves making it perfect to use for a neat dense dwarf hedge but is versatile enough that it can be grown into a hedge up to 1.5m.

Holly Japanese is a slow growing evergreen that produces small delicate white flowers in late May to June followed by small black fruits in autumn but like all hollies this fruit will only be produced by the females. The compact nature of this hardy evergreen means it is perfect for topiary therefore being a popular plant with Bonsai enthusiasts. It can be trained and pruned into many shapes including Cloud pruning which is a Japanese method of training trees called ‘Niwaki’.

Holly Japanese can be used to make a hedge, create parterres, be planted in beds or as borders. It is excellent to add architectural interest to any garden or patio and will grow on all well drained soils or in pots. It grows approximately 12-20cm per year and should be pruned in summer. When pruned, it will produce fresh growth from old wood so if hard pruning is needed and areas of bare stem are cut into, new growth will occur.

Japanese Holly hedging is sold by us potted in varying sizes so can be bought at any time of year subject to availability. Please do call us if you have any further questions and we will do our best to help you.

Delivery leadtimes update – April 2025

Spring is our busiest time of year and we are working through orders as fast as we can to get your plants delivered. To give you an accurate idea of when your order will arrive, these are the current leadtimes (delivery is 1-2 days after despatch):

– Orders containing only bare roots and root balls – despatch within 3 working days.

– All orders containing potted plants – despatch within 14 working days.

Delivery is free for most orders above our free delivery thresholds, these are displayed above our prices in the product listings and summarized below. If you don’t need that many plants it’s not a problem, you can choose to pay our delivery charge and only order what you need.

Delivery is convenient – no signature is required so you don’t need to wait in, we will leave your parcel in the safe place that you nominate.

Delivery is fast – because we pick orders daily from our own growing beds your plants only travel the small hop to our packing shed before being sent to you, they are usually delivered within 5-7 working days.

Delivery is reliable – we have been selling and delivering Hedging Plants to our customers nationwide since 1992. We have a lot of experience in packing them safely and only use tried and tested delivery partners.

Smaller Plants (Parcel Delivery)

Heavy Plants (Pallet Delivery)

Tall Plants 2.5m+ (Specialist Delivery)

Exceptions to our delivery charges are Scottish Highland and Isle of Wight delivery areas where we need to charge a little extra to cover the cost of deliveries to these outlying areas. We don’t currently delivery to other offshore addresses including Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.

Tall plants over 2.5 metres have to be delivered by our own specialised transport, our delivery area is limited to mainland England and Wales only.

Please note there is a minimum order value of £50 for orders containing smaller plants and £250 for orders containing heavier plants

Complete delivery information can be viewed on our Delivery Information page