Ilex x meserveae 'BLUE BUNNY' blue holly, Meserve holly - male

Blue Bunny is a nice newcomer among blue hollies from Canada. It is a brother (male variety) of Golden Girl which is a female version with yellow berries. Blue Bunny is a perfect pollinator for all female varieties of blue hollies. Its leaves are dark green and glossy, rather elongated and slightly toothed at margins. Twigs are purple. It grows upright into a narrowly columnar shrub and will fit into a small garden.

Meserveae hollies are called “blue hollies” thanks to the shade of the species leaves that are dark green with bluish tint. And the name meserveae was chosen for its cultivator, Kathleen Meserve, who, literally on her windowsill, made a cross of ilex rugosa and ilex aquifolium in 1950´s to achieve excellent cold hardiness on a fabulously foliaged evergreen plant. She died in 1999 at the age of 93 but left behind an impressive line of these evergreen superbly hardy varieties.


Blue hollies need almost no maintenance if you provide them with slightly acidic soil at the beginning and enough moisture for the first couple of years to enable establishing extensive root system. They are beautiful and trouble-free dense shrubs with no defoliated twigs even without pruning. However, this variety benefits from some clipping at young age to fill up the lower parts. Another huge advantage is its above mentioned hardiness. It can withstand temperatures down to -26 or -28°C.

Last update 26-02-2010.