An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Quercus Ilex

It was a fine February day in 2019 and I was on a pleasant visit to St Andrews. Sitting in the sheltered sunshine of the courtyard beside the University’s School of Divinity, I was struck by the massive tree, with it huge girth, that dominated the space. The tree was in the perfect shape of a mature oak, and yet its leaves were waxy evergreen, rather like holly. I went off in search of more detail and discovered that this magnificent specimen, said to the be the finest in Scotland, is a Holm Oak, or Quercus Ilex. Later that year, on holiday in France near Bordeaux, I came across another example of the same tree in the grounds of a ruined abbey. Here it seemed totally at home in the hot afternoon, wonderfully shaped and with a mass of dusty-green foliage.

When I got home, I quickly looked up the tree again, and despite reference to its Mediterranean origins, I ordered a small specimen, about 3 feet tall, growing in a pot. I duly planted it in the middle of a circle of dark dogwoods and hoped for the best. How would it fare in our mild, wet region – so different to the Gironde or indeed to Fife. In the intervening years, I have been delighted to see my Quercus Ilex rebut wind, rain, snow and frost and make steady progress. Not yet a specimen tree in the conventional sense, and photographs still don’t quite do it justice, but the Holm Oak, first brought to Britain around 1500, is among my favourite trees in the Dumfriesshire Garden. It is now about 8 or 9 feet tall and puts on healthy growth each year. Looking at the pictures here, I should perhaps try to improve the staking. Beyond that it is left to its own devices and brings forth my fond admiration when I look at it each day. It has also nicely solved the ‘Q’ problem in this A-Z of the garden in 2024!

Oh and by the way, here below is a picture of the St Andrew’s Holm Oak, taken by me in 2019. Thought to have been planted about 1740, its short trunk is 12 feet in girth. Apparently it suffered some storm damage to its crown about 20 years ago and had to be pruned heavily at the time, but quickly put on new growth. Its toughness bodes well for my Dumfriesshire Garden specimen.

The full list of pieces that make up my A-Z in the Dumfriesshire Garden in 2024 can be found here: https://davidgrahamclark.net/a-z-of-the-dumfriesshire-garden-in-2024/