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Why are there fewer berries on holly this year?

Barnaby Perkins/BBC A close-up of a green twig showing bright red berries and holly leaves. Snow is resting on the holly leaves Barnaby Perkins/BBC
Decking houses in holly has pagan roots but was adopted as part of Christian festivities at Christmas, according to the National Trust

The red flash of holly berries will be missing from most people's traditional Christmas decorations this year because the trees have "taken the year off".

Holly farmer Nick Coller, from the Broads in Norfolk and Suffolk, said his takings would be "20% of what they usually are", after most of his trees failed to produce berries.

It follows an "exceptional" crop for producers last year, so he knew this year's would be down, but "I was hoping for a few more than we actually did get".

Author and garden expert Bob Flowerdew said the trees were "feeling weak, they don't really want to have another baby straight away".

Qays Najm/BBC Bob Flowerdew standing in front of an evergreen hedge. He has a grey beard and a plait of hair over his left shoulder. He is wearing a grey woolly hat and a red waterproof over a purple fleece, a blue shirt and a black roll-neck jumper and is smiling broadlyQays Najm/BBC
Gardener Bob Flowerdew said many holly trees have failed to produce berries this year

"The same thing happens with apples, one year you get a fantastic crop, the tree gets exhausted, it just takes a year off," the BBC Radio 4 Gardeners' Question Time expert said.

With apples, producers get round this by thinning the crop to get fewer, bigger fruit.

"You can't do that with holly berries, there are too many of them," he said.

Qays Najm/BBC Nick Coller standing in front of a dense holly tree. He has short white hair and is wearing a green waxed jacket over a fleece and a white shirt with a black tie with pictures of holly on itQays Najm/BBC
Farmer Nick Coller said what berries he has got have been "finished off" by winter birds

Mr Coller farms 100 varieties of holly on five to six acres (two to 2.5 hectares) near Ludham.

The trees take a couple of years to produce berries and the wet conditions and warm spring in 2023 resulted in "a monster crop for us", he said.

He had warned his customers "we're going to see a year of very, very few berries because we'd had experience of this in the past - the family began selling the crop commercially in 1967, from trees planted in the 1930s by his grandfather.

Christmas wreath hanging from a black front door, 2010. It has a ring of variegated leaves in lighter shades of green on the outside and an inner ring of dark green holly leaves with scarlet berries
People are still making Christmas wreaths, but unlike in former years, they are less likely to have the holly berries

As a result, he was unable to supply London's New Covent Garden Market and Spitalfields Market.

Mr Coller said: "I'm still cutting some holly, people are still making a lot of wreaths, but they can't decorate the house with the red berries, which is an ancient tradition.

Qays Najm/BBC Heather Deane who has fair hair cut in a fringe and pulled back behind her head, with some strands falling around her ears. She is wearing a dark v-necked top under a black cardiganQays Najm/BBC
Professional wreath maker Hannah Deane, who said red and green are the colours of a traditional Christmas, is using other plants' scarlet berries

Hannah Deane, who runs Christmas wreath making classes at Dairy Barns, Hickling, has had to find alternatives.

"We're using a hypericum berry, which we're wiring into the leaves to sit alongside the holly," she said.

"Or you can buy little red berries on wires, it's... not the same as proper berries, but it gives you that Christmas feel."

So after a fallow year, can we expect a return of the holly berries next year?

"Of course, but this is gardening and in gardening, whatever you expect doesn't always happen," said Mr Flowerdew.

Listen: Holly trees and bushes are missing their berries this year… but why?

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