There is a convention that in the east the only truly suitable area is Cape Cod etc. However, Lake County nursery in Ohio has a white variegated form they promote. Where are you?

i have Ilex x Meserveae 'Honey Maid'

no clue if that is an english version .. dont care ...

gold and green ..

took winter damage for about 4 years ... but once i took down the root-invasive tree it was under .... it started to do much better ... i cant recall the tree name.. but a maple family tree with peely copper colored bark.. with 80% of its roots on the surface.. strangling everything around it for water.. thereby summer stressing the holly for water in winter ...

why do you need an english one.. presuming mine is not an english ...

ken

It's not that aggiegrad needs one, Ken - he/she already has one, so the issue is how to best care for it now :-)

Ilex x meserveae is not an "English" holly, although it does have I. aquifolium in its parentage. It is considerably more cold hardy than aquifolium so a good alternate for colder climates. Those little variegated English hollies are often promoted for Christmas as tabletop decorations or whatever, but are generally considered to be throw-away plants in colder areas in the same way as a lot of small, Christmas-like decorator plants are.

I would never cut down an Acer griseum for the benefit of any other kind of plant, few ornamental trees and shrubs are as special as a paperbark maple.

After a place up the road sold the paperbark maple that had been there perhaps decades disappeared and was replaced by a few low grade hybrid bush roses like they sell in boxes at drug stores.

hey gal .. those darn first sentences of the facts are really special.. IF you read then.. lol ...

bboy.. it came down.. because it had a bad fork in teh trunk at about 2 feet tall ... horrible festering wound... planted about 10 years prior ... 12 inch think trunks ./...

had i PROPERLY pruned it many years prior.. i could have fixed the problem ....

but by the time the chainsaw walked by.. with each of the trunks leaning about 30 degrees off vertical .. impulse told me to take it down ... as i suspected that a gaping wound on removing an 8 to 12 inch trunk might cause the other to fall ...

besides.. you know my hatred of maples ... lol .. and this one taught me a lot in regard to that hatred ...

but we digress form the OP's post...

ken

English holly (and many other holly species) really like acid sandy soils with regular moisture (like on Cape Cod, or even Lake County, OH). Given that, they can overcome a plethora of less satisfactory conditions on the east side of the US. I know many gardeners and growers in Delaware and Maryland (particularly the Baltimore area) that grow Ilex aquifolium shamelessly with no regrets.

All that said: growing English holly in zone 5 is a crap shoot. Give it the best conditions you can, including protection from winter winds and winter sun, and you'll have a fighting chance. Follow all gardengal's recommendations above, and get the most roots under it before planting out in the real world.

I don't think that the plant will survive long term in zone 5--sorry 'bout the pessimism. At best they're good to 6b. (Not sure if variegation is an added negative but I don't believe that helps.) I have one in zone 7 (along with the ACID soil)--it suffers no die and is attractive but I like the move vigorous growth on my Nellie Stevens. But the English one does seem to be a bit more temperamental as it also has a southern limit (heat tolerance) on the East Coast--Virginia and north (zone 7, maybe 6b). Good luck with it though.

Yes, the thing about Cape Cod etc. is the cooler summers.

'English holly (and many other holly species) really like acid sandy soils with regular moisture' - moisture,yes, as long as drainage is good, but acid and sandy? Not sure about that. I wouldn't want people to be put off trying it because they don't have acid soil. Ilex aquifolium grows all over the place here, regardless of soil. The link is just one reference to its soil tolerance.

Here is a link that might be useful: Holly requirements