Two years ago, I posted a photo of a holly tree, heavy with bright red berries, a cheerful sight that now belongs to history. That tree has since been unceremoniously axed, part of the grand plan to reduce tree cover on Roseberry Common to a mere 10%. Why? To prevent the Common from succeeding into woodland. The holly’s glorious past now reduced to a habitat pile for birds and small mammals.

Not far from the felled holly, another holly tree remains. This one, free from the overcrowding by taller woodland neighbours, is being granted the privilege of growing into its natural form. It might someday reach the stately height of 8 to 10 metres, with a proportionally modest spread. Being evergreen, it clings to its leaves year-round, though it graciously discards its older ones, blanketing the ground in a slow-decaying carpet of leaf litter. But where are all the berries? There is a notable shortage this year, with trees producing barely a handful. If you can find any at all. Perhaps the hollies have forgotten their role in seasonal cheer.
Hollies, as one must remember, are dioecious. Some are male, others female, and only the females bear fruit if cross-pollinated by a nearby male. Pollination, of course, is subject to the whims of weather. A damp, dreary flowering season keeps bees and other pollinators grounded, leaving the flowers to fade in solitude. Drought-stressed plants might not bother forming flower buds at all, or the buds might wither before spring.
A hot, dry July is said to be ideal for berry production the following year. Recall the summer of 2018—parched, sizzling—and the resulting berry bonanza of 2019. Compare that to July 2023, with its feeble 5.2 hours of daily sunlight, against 8.7 hours in 2018. Hardly an inspiring backdrop for fecundity. Add to this the onslaught of 12 named storms in the 2023/24 season, and the picture becomes less a mystery and more an inevitability.
Nature is reactive, not predictive. Trees and animals are as clueless about the forthcoming winter as we are. Folklore, ever the pessimist, declares that a holly bursting with berries foretells a bitter winter, as if the trees are divinely informed. Birds, apparently, know better than to feast too early, saving the berries for harsher months.
But if berries foretell frost, does their absence promise a mild winter? Or is this just another old wives’ tale, wheeled out to distract from the far simpler truth: the holly is doing what it can in a world we have thoroughly complicated?
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