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“Silver Queen” and “Golden Queen” are both male, while “Golden King” is female. Of the green-leaved female forms Ilex x altclarensis “Camelliifolia” is the most desirable. Pre-Christians brought holly indoors in winter to provide a refuge for woodland spirits. The Romans are said to have collected it to celebrate Saturnalia and now it adorns our houses for Christmas.
It is the female holly that bears the berries and if berries are important, both male and female forms must be planted The nomenclature of hollies is puzzling Do not imagine that a female name implies berries. The beauty of holly lies in its shiny leaves, which reflect the light even on dreary days Its ancient mystic properties also make it hard to resist. All evergreens are a symbol of life at the dead time of year, but holly has been especially revered.

NOW THAT deciduous trees are bare it is easy to see the attraction of evergreens. Without them, our gardens would be bleak places for more than half the year. This series looks at some of the different trees and shrubs that keep their leaves in winter. It is seasonal to choose holly, but I think I would put it first whatever the time of year.

So before you blithely sow the seed in the next few weeks, remember the hot days of summer and the trudge to and from the house with the watering can, and examine your motives.SUPPLIERS: Ring the following for seed catalogues from firms mentioned above and others with good tomato lists: Chase Organics 01932 820958; Dobies 01803 616888; Johnsons 0800 614323 (Free-phone); Marshalls 01945 583407; Suttons 01803 614614; Thomson and Morgan 01473 688821; Unwins 01945 588522.. Both the larger kinds, though, produced better crops in the pots on the steps, where they continued to ripen until early November.Tomatoes are satisfying to grow but are not the easiest of vegetables and, even in this celebratory year, I would recommend them only to people prepared to offer the necessary commitment. They are as much of a tie as pets; if you go away at the height of summer, even just for the weekend, you have to arrange for someone to look after them. Their flavour was on the bland side.The Supersweet behind the house began to ripen first, in early August, but those in the allotment were not far behind last year. They are as delicious as their name suggests but I too thought that Sungold, which I grew the year before, just had the edge in flavour.

Dario – juicy and sharp – matured next while Celebrity, clearly used to the California sunshine, was a week or two behind.The Supersweet yielded better on the allotment than in pots: perhaps they like to spread their roots around. It grew vigorously in a pot behind the house but produced only about 10 fruit, not exactly white but pale yellow. Blossom end rot seldom occurs in tomatoes planted in the open ground.One indulgence I allowed myself last year was a single white tomato – from the Henry Doubleday Research Association’s list of endangered vegetables – that I bought as a seedling when visiting a garden in the Cots-wolds. You can, however, now buy attachments for the tops of the bags which contain deep water reservoirs and should help keep the plants happy.Once the trusses start to set I add a standard tomato food such as Phos- trogen to the water at every second watering.

Yet however carefully I water and feed it is very hard to avoid blossom end rot – a blackening of the fruit on the side furthest from the stem. The first fruits to ripen are always worst affected, and as summer progresses the problem eases. For the pots I use a peat-based multi-purpose compost, because I have not found a peat-free product that holds moisture nearly as well. Watering is always a difficulty with tomatoes, and in the fiercest part of last summer, even with daily watering, they were beginning to droop before evening.The problem is even worse if you grow them in growing bags (purpose-made plastic bags filled with compost) which get very hot very quickly. Most years I have about 10 plants in 10in pots standing on steps behind the house.