OREGON 
the Flome of the Hollies 
The growing of English holly for sale at the Christmas season 
originated in the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest about the 
year 1900. From the time of Oregon’s official recognition as a 
Territory of the United States in 1848 our farms and cities have been 
peopled largely from the flow of settlers pioneering their way 
westward in search of new homesteads and fortunes in a land of 
promise and plenty. 
It became the custom of Oregonians to remember their eastern 
friends and relatives at the Christmas time with boxes filled brim- 
ming with the bright red berried branches of English holly and 
clipped from huge trees abounding in the area. Our earliest florists 
joined in the spirit of the occasion by offering special gift packages 
of Christmas Holly for those who had neither trees of their own, nor 
time or inclination to prune and prepare the prickly leaved holly 
for shipment. 
Thus encouraged by a growing demand for holly at the Christmas 
season, and for living hollies for landscaping, our first nurserymen 
began at about the turn of the century to select and propagate from 
seemingly the choicest of the seedling trees. The first holly grove at 
the Brownell Farms and consisting of 400 budded seedlings was set 
out in 1910, and is today one of the oldest commercial plantings 
of English Holly on the Pacific Coast. 
The Role of the Brownell Folly Farms 
To the Brownell Farms fell the lot of pioneering the first large 
scale out-of-state shipments of Oregon grown holly. Our earliest 
holly orders rode the waves aboard ocean freighters bound for 
California markets. Within a few years our holly found ready 
welcome in the florist shops of Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis and 
Chicago. By 1930 trade-marked holly from the Brownell Farms 
‘‘Where Your Christmas Holly Grows” was placed on sale in nearly 
5 
