Hedging Plants - Box

Name – Common box is known botanically as Buxus sempervirens

Description and uses – this very dense small-leaved native evergreen, with dark green glossy, leathery leaves which give off an unusual sweet smell which isn’t to everybody’s taste. Small yellow flowers appear from late winter and give the hedge a rather tufty appearance. Box has traditionally been used for topiary work. Unchecked, it will grown to be ten feet tall and five feet across in two decades, with an ultimate height of thirty feet. Box is generally very slow growing and shade tolerant and an ideal edging shrub.

Maintenance and problems – Box is eminently suitable for formal trimmed hedges and should be trimmed in August or September to make a hedge of one to nine feet in height. Box cuttings taken in late summer or early autumn will root quickly and be ready for planting out the following spring. Collect sprigs of box in plastic bag moistened with water. Remove shoots and make cuttings four inches long and then cut them below a leaf joint and remove lower leaves to leave two thirds of the stem bare. Put several cuttings around the edge of a pot filled with compost and water then set the pot in shady place. You can speed up rooting by covering with a plastic bag and securing with an elastic band. New plants to make a hedge should be set nine to fifteen inches apart.

Hedging box photograph by k4chii, used under a creative commons attribution licence

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