Inkberry Shrub - Garden Work

A hydrangea with dark leaves, a mock orange that reblooms, and an inkberry holly that solves the “bare-legs” problem are among the most interesting new trees and shrubs hitting the market for the 2024 ... Inkberry holly is a slow-growing broadleaf evergreen shrub with a rounded-to-upright growth habit. It is easy to grow and offers good winter color.

The name "inkberry" is a clear reference to the dark fruits produced by the shrub, as is the plant's secondary common name, "gallberry." Inkberry holly, Ilex glabra, aka gallberry, is an evergreen shrub that grows in USDA Hardiness Zones 4 to 11. Species plants achieve a mature stature of five to eight feet tall and wide. Learn about Inkberry, a native shrub. Complete guide to planting, care, pruning, wildlife value, and landscaping uses.

inkberry shrub, Inkberry (Ilex glabra) is one of the few native evergreen shrubs widely available to us as residential home gardeners. Shrubs can be dotted among garden beds to provide pops of winter color, planted along a fence to provide a bit of screening or used in place of boxwoods. Inkberry is a woody, multi-branched, broadleaf evergreen shrub in the holly family (Aquifoliaceae). It is native to the SE USA. The species epithet means “smooth” in Latin, a description of the plant’s leaf surface.

inkberry shrub, Inkberry prefers a site in full sun to partial shade and clay or sandy acidic soils with good drainage. Ilex glabra 'Shamrock' (Inkberry) is an evergreen, stoloniferous shrub of compact, rounded habit with slender foliage of thick, spineless, dark green leaves. In late spring to early summer, it produces abundant small greenish-white flowers that are followed by a profusion of dark blue-black berries in fall. Ilex glabra, commonly called inkberry or gallberry, is a slow-growing, upright-rounded, stoloniferous, broadleaf evergreen shrub in the holly family. It typically matures to 5-8’ tall, and can spread by root suckers to form colonies. Inkberry (Ilex glabra) is an upright evergreen shrub in the Holly family that grows naturally in bogs and wet woods of coastal plains.

The small, inconspicuous, white-green flowers give way to black berries in the fall.