Ilex mutchagara Landscaper Favorite is the most floriferous of

is the most floriferous of the group

The loquat keeps an upside-down calendar

Photos courtesy of John Grimshaw and John Anderson

The dark leaves make a fine backdrop for lighter foliage and for the scarlet winter fruit

makes immediate sense in bloom: the flowers are essentially all stamens

Ilex mutchagara Landscaper Favorite is the most floriferous ofIlex mutchagara is a quiet, graceful evergreen holly from Okinawa, close enough to the familiar Japanese holly, Ilex crenata, that some botanists treat it as a form of that species. The small, glossy, dark green leaves carry fine teeth along the edges but no spines at all, and the habit is open and airy rather than dense, giving the shrub a lighter, more relaxed look than the tightly sheared boxwood substitutes it resembles. Native to Okinawa in the