INKBERRY

My inkberry has yellow leaves in the middle of the plant. Once they yellow and fall off that section is bare. But there seems to be new growth sprouting up at the top. What could be the problem?

Oh and does anyone know how to tell the difference between male and female ones? I have four of them and I don't know what they are.

Yellowing foliage at the center of the plant is fairly common for Inkberries especailly in spring when they push their new growth (actually, most members of the genus Ilex, the hollies, do this). As long as you don't see the yellowing progress towards the tips of the branches, everything will be OK.

As for the difference between male and female plants I only know three ways to tell. If you know which cultivar your plant is (like Shamrock, Nigra or Ivory Queen) you can determine the sex via the internet because each cultivar is only one sex or the other. If you don't know the cultivar you will need to take a close look at the flowers, which I think you may have just missed. They are usually very tiny, half hidden by the foliage and only appear in spring. If the flowers have anthers (that make pollen) they are male, if not they are female. The last thing you can do is watch for fruit. Although if it is a female and there is no male pollinator nearby it will not bear fruit so this isn't the best way to tell.

THANK YOU SOO much!!! I love these bushes!! I just called the nursery and I have 3 shamrock which I believe are male. My neighbor bought me one from a different nursery and no on seems to no the variety. That one seems to have white flowers. Is that a male also or a female? If so how close to they have to be together. I have my three males on one side of the house and the unknown one on the other side of the house separated by a driveway. Will my boys pollinate my possible girl on the other side of the house?
This message was edited Jun 10, 2008 4:20 PM

This message was edited Jun 10, 2008 4:32 PM

This message was edited Jun 10, 2008 7:46 PM

here are the pics of the flowers

The unknown inkberry looks like it might be female at first glance because I don't see any pollen. However I do see some small structures that look like anthers whose pollen has fallen off so it's hard to say for sure. Another identifying feature is that male flowers appear in clusters and female flowers are solitary but, again, it's hard for me to taell from your picture. This site has some good pics of male flowers: http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/trees/ilgl.html This site shows how male flowers bloom in clusters: http://www.floridasnature.com/images/Inkberry%20(Ilex%20glabra)%20flower.jpg And this is the best picture I could find of a female bloom: http://markalot.org/backyard/images/front97/inkberry_june19.jpg

If your oddball inkberry turns out to be female you won't have to plant it very close to the males at all for pollination as long as you have some helpful bees to do the work for you. Good luck!