Boxwood’s are a great contribution to a formal garden landscape. Use your imagination because these bushes can be crafted into any shape. They are fabulous in the northern cold climates keeping green and lively year round. Boxwood’s do require a certain amount of care and maintenance. If you follow my simple steps, you’ll most likely be able to keep your boxwoods in perfect condition throughout each season:

1. Stear clear of irregular mixing of your boxwood bushes. If you have an existing boxwood hedge it is entirely possible that you will have trouble finding the exact match to what is already there. In that case look for something that has a similar leaf. Boxes come in many different colors of green-so definitely look at what you have and what the nursery has and make some choices based on what will look good together. Alternatively you’ll wind up with assortment of rapid growth and slow growth boxes with some being a lime green and others being darker green giving you a undesirable end result!

2. When building a new hedge or landscape, do some research to find a good boxwood for your region. You will be better off if you can get a nice boxwood that is healthy, hearty and vivacious.  For example, Korean Boxwood is a variety that grows quickly,and is disease resistant in northern climates.

3. The third thing to discuss here is getting about a half of a cup (per plant) of nice acidic (organic please) fertilizer that has peat, compost, dehydrated manuer and some of that special evergreen food and get it all around the bases of your boxwoods. You are going to want to maintain good root coverage, so make note to replace good dirt.

4. Just because the boxwood is mostly obvious when it comes to pruning dosen’t mean that a tips aren’t necessary. Always be sure to let new spring growth harden off before you have your boxes first hair cut of the year and never prune them late in the fall. Simply put, in don’t want to have all dead and brown patches in the spring, just don’t do your pruning in the fall. People love to see beautiful bright green boxwoods in the winter and will really frown down on the dead brown. Better they be a little shaggy than dead looking.  

5. Boxwood’s have a shallow root system and because of that they can dry out quickly. So always remember to mulch your boxwood’s. Doing so guards the root system and maintains a moisture retention. On the other hand, you could wind up killing your box’s by rotting out the bark if you over do it with the mulch. Everything considered, discipline and moderation are even necessary when in the garden.

6.Be on the look out for fungal diseases on your boxes. Generally quite strong and capable, even boxwoods have been know to ocassionaly be overrun by plant illness. If you think that what you have is more than winter damage you will need to research boxwood’s and disease. Majority of the shrub diseases that are common can be fixed using sprays. Don’t go throwing a bunch of toxins around before you have throughly analyzed the issues. When all else seems hopeless, simply replace the shrub that is having problems right away. One plant is inexpensive to replace, an entire hedge gets really expensive.

Good luck and enjoy the lush evergreen of your boxes in your formal or not so formal landscape-they are always a great shrub choice for any garden.

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