Holly might not normally seem like a large enough plant to use for privacy, but that's not the case with this cultivar. Nellie Stevens holly (Ilex 'Nellie R. Stevens') can actually reach heights of 30 ...

Dear Neil: I’m planting Nellie R. Stevens hollies along our 6-foot privacy fence and will top it at 8 feet. How far a part should I space them, and how far should they be away from the fence 18, 24 or ...

However, my go-to tall privacy screen is Nellie R. Stevens holly. It grows to 12 to 15 feet tall and 8 or 9 feet wide with very infrequent trimming. It actually can grow even larger in Southeast and ...

Dear Neil: I planted two small Japanese yews a year ago to act as privacy screening plants. They have grown well, but I can already tell it will take too long for them to give the privacy I need. Can ...

When we moved to our current house, very little landscaping had been done. In the area that now is my cottage garden, there was a hawthorn tree growing that was brushing against the south side of the ...

Dear Neil: I need a tall screen for our backyard. It needs to be evergreen, and I’d like it to grow to be 10 or 12 feet tall. It’s rather shady. What would you suggest? A: Nellie R. Stevens holly ...

DEAR NEIL: If I wanted to grow a Nellie R. Stevens holly as a tree, how would I train it? I see nice shrubs in the nursery. What should I be looking for? Dear Reader: If you want a single-trunk tree ...

Deer have stripped all the leaves off my evergreen and my Nellie Stevens holly. Will they grow back, or should I cut them down? Some evergreen species tolerate deer “pruning” well and put out new ...

Focus on the human names that identify many plants and you realize that you have amassed not so much a collection of garden favorites as a mob of strangers. There’s `Nellie Stevens’ (a holly); `Betty ...