Wind Fire
Your 6 Steps To Maintaining Beautiful Boxwood Home Edging
Boxwoods are an excellent addition to a formal landscaped garden. Use your imagination because these shrubs can be sculpted into any shape. They are fabulous in the northern cold climates keeping green and lively year round. Yes, boxwoods desire some attention and some TLC will be mandatory. Surefire steps to keeping your boxwoods abundant throughout the seasons to come:
1. Keep from mix matching your boxwood hedge. If you have a boxwood hedge that needs replacement it is totally possible to have issue finding the exact same replacement to what you already got. In that case look for something that has a similar leaf. Just like with flowers, there are a variety of choices and what looks good together can vary, so examine what the nursery has, see what looks good together and make your decisions accordingly. Otherwise you will end up with some very quick growing boxes that are lime green and some slow growers that are dark green and it will look like a mix and match nightmare!
2. Every area is different, so doing some research before constructing your new boxwood hedge designs is solid advice. It’s best to find the flourishing boxes that are more resistant to disease and also have a higher tolerance for drought conditions. 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 spread out around the bases of your boxwoods. Roots have to be protected and will require you to accomodate them with organic matter each couple of seasons.
4. There are a couple rules to swear by when pruning your boxwoods, but for the most part it is pretty straight forward. 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. If you didn’t know, pruning in the fall promotes new and tender sprigs to grow that are going to brown in the spring. This will cause a dead look for several months before new growth comes in so your best not to do it. People enjoy 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. With that, never forget to mulch your boxs’. This will protect their roots and help the roots retain moisture. Shy away from over-mulching as you could very well wind up killing your plants due to bark rot from buried bases. Everything considered, discipline and moderation are even necessary when in the garden.
6.Periodically do a check of your boxes for fungal type diseases. Generally quite strong and capable, even boxwoods have been know to ocassionaly be overrun by plant illness. If you are suspecting that the problems with your boxwoods is disease and not just damage from the winter then you’ll be best doing some basic research first. Whether your shrubs are dealing with a mold problem or an insect infestation, chances are it can be treated with a fungicidal spray or with an oil soap. For heavens sake (and the planets’) figure out the core issue prior to getting our the chemicals. When all else seems hopeless, simply replace the bush that is having issues right away. Fortuantly having to replace just one plant isn’t a huge deal, but when it comes to big issues and restoring a complete landscaped hedge your looking at some real cost.
Best of luck to you during this and I hope you enjoy the wonderful evergreen of the boxwoods in your landscaping…boxwoods are really a wonderful choice.
For a complete line of Bird Brain home and garden decor to accent your landscapes, be sure to check out Cool Garden Things with their decorative bird feeders and Bird Brain fire pots.
September by. Earth, Wind and Fire