Brownell Holly FarmsOver 100 Years of Northwest HollyBrownell Holly Farms
100 Years of Northwest Holly
History of The Brownell Holly Farms
This year marks Brownell Farms' 103rd year of growing and shipping premium Northwest grown holly!
Attorney and Senator George C. Brownell started the company by planting 400 holly
trees imported from England in 1910. He was a true holly pioneer since this was
one of the first commercial orchards in the Pacific Northwest. The trees thrived in the temperate climate and rich soils of the
Willamette River valley in Oregon.
The first shipment of holly went by ocean
liner to San Francisco and Los Angeles florists in 1918. By the early
1920's Brownell holly was delivered to Denver, Kansas City, Chicago and other
Midwest cities. Just a few years later our holly was found in nearly every
principal city in the country. George past away in 1921 but his son Ambrose had
spent lots of time tending the hollies and had decided that he would be a farmer.
Besides growing holly he also was involved in the purebred poultry eggs, baby
chicks and breeding stock. One day, in the 1930's while addressing Christmas cards to his
poultry customers with his wife Helen, they thought how cheerful it would
be if they could send a personal selection of choice cuttings of real
berried holly from their own trees.
They decided to go ahead and collected an odd assortment of gift boxes and the
response was spontaneous and so enthusiastic and appreciative. The following
year they sent holly in shoe boxes and the poultry customers were requesting
them to send Christmas holly to their friends. So it was that the mail order
holly business began. Before, the sale of our holly had been confined to the
wholesale florist trade but we now knew we could send the lovely fresh cut
sprays directly to the homes of those who were to enjoy Christmas cheer. To
improve our gift package a cellophane wrapping was utilized to help preserve
moisture and freshness. Also the gift boxes were improved in shape, strength and
designed with colorful printing to make the total package an appropriate gift.
Ambrose Brownell was passionate over his holly but he also
knew that the quality of holly could be improved with careful selection and
propagation of trees with desirable characteristics. He developed over 35 named
cultivars of holly with superior qualities. A commercial holly has to be fast
maturing, have early berry ripening, be uniform, disease and drought resistant
and produce well balanced, marketable sprays. His commercial hollies are Rederly,
Firecracker, Special, Escort and Silvary which are planted in our orchards
today.
Ambrose
grew hundreds of thousands of "tru to type" hollies for the industry and had
over 100 acres in two separate farm orchards. Collecting rare and unusual
hollies from seedlings, mutations and from nurseries around the world Ambrose
created a holly arboretum of nearly 300 different specimens.
Through the years as the holly gift market continued to expand
many family members were recruited to help during the hectic holiday season.
Daughter Patricia Brownell Lee was enlisted to manage the holly operations in
the late sixties. She designed and built a new modern packing facility with cold
storage on our river farm in the early seventies. Our operations are now
concentrated on this 75 acre property with over 10,000 beautiful, well
established trees.