2yo holly bush, train to look like a lollipop?

[Fluffycloudland77]

My councils giving away free trees again & I’m considering a holly bush. It’s only 2yo & ideally I’d like a lolly pop shape.

Do you think I’d be able to train it to grow like that?.

It’s Ilex aquifolium.

Yes you can, a friend of mine has one, but it will take a few years. Let one single trunk grow really tall - much taller than you eventually want it. Doing this will thicken the trunk. Take off all lower side branches but leave the ones higher up. Then chop the top off. It should sprout loads of branches where you want them then, and you can keep on trimming to make it bushier.

Thank you, you’ve confirmed what I thought. It’ll be a bit of winter colour, hopefully.