Country diary: Time for a Christmas cut of holly - and we've both come armed | Susie White

Allendale, Northumberland: Every winter I return to it with my secateurs, but hollies certainly know how to protect themselvesIt has become an annual ritual, the cutting of branches from this shapely holly for a winter wreath. A mixture of the wild and of things garnered from my garden, I push twigs and vines into a metal frame packed with moss from drystone walls. Resinous rosemary and pine, silver seedheads of clematis, trails of ivy, lichens, ferns, honesty - each year is different with whatever I happen to find.This particular holly is always a good source of scarlet berries, but this year it is even more jewelled than usual. It has, for now, been untouched by birds who cannily eat shorter-lived fruits first (wild raspberry, rowan, elder), leaving the solid drupes of holly until other food is scarce. Then its bounty might be guarded by a mistle thrush, possessively seeing off other possible feasters. Hollies are dioecious, with male and female flowers on different trees, so this is a female, its fertility the result of bees ferrying pollen from nearby males. Continue reading...