Japanese holly can take lots of winter abuse at elevation in the PNW. I haven't seen any kind of holly suffer from too much winter rain from OR to BC on the Canadian side. I find that Holly is amazingly strong. Most take saturated soil (Vancouver, BC - Seattle, WA) and some can tolerate very dry summers. Sky Pencil is grown at low elevation in the PNW. So it's more tender to a prolonged or frequent freeze. It's nice so you have good taste...

BTW: The Japanese holly fern is a very tough evergreen fern but does not like hot, dry weather. I use that fern as a small evergreen in shade.

Here's a Variegated Holly on Vancouver Island.

Cheers

Here is a link that might be useful: Variegated Holly