When it comes to holly, New Jersey leads the nation
Dr. Elwin Orton has given the Ilex genus over 40 years of close attention. Few individuals have played a more critical role in improving the hollies available in trade, where today you’ll find more than 1,000 cultivars of our native species.
“You start with the best genetic material you can get and go through thousands of seedlings, discarding maybe 98 to 99 percent of them,” says Dr. Orton, describing the laborious mechanics of hybridization. “It can take 15, 20 years — sometimes more — to grow them out, make selections and come up with something commercially interesting.”
Source: Overdevest Nurseries – wholesale ONLY grower
![[Rutgers: NJAES logo]](https://breeding.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RU_SHIELD_SIG_NJAES_PMS186_100K.png)
