Box Hedging Plants - Buxus sempervirens - Common Boxwood Trees
These are Common Box hedging plants - Buxus sempervirens - grown outside, uncovered & ready trimmed for maximum toughness and bushiness. Box trees are hardy native plants with fragrant foliage. Their small evergreen leaves are glossy and clip beautifully, making Box plants ideal for neat, formal edging, low hedges and topiary. Box plants naturally have wonderfully compact and dense growth. Buxus sempervirens is one of the most shade tolerant hedging shrubs there is; in fact, Box even prefers partial shade and will develop a richer tone when planted out of the full sun.
A well maintained Box hedge can - after many years - be a magnificent sight. There is one in the parish of Babington that is about 6 metres tall, but you will have to be extremely patient for yours to get that tall. Box hedging is ideal for projects between 30 cms and a metre high. If you are plagued with deer, a Box Tree hedge is a good choice, as they seem to have no taste for it.
Box Tree Flowers & Seeds: Box produces little yellowish, flowers in March / April - these really are nothing to write home about and can't be seen from a little distance as they are hidden between the leaves. Since most box hedges are kept well trimmed, very few flower buds will be there to bloom anyway. All the same, you should see some bees popping in for a bite to eat. As far as we know, the small seeds aren't eaten by any larger animals.
Boxwood itself is prized for inlay work, being very hard and close grained with a warm yellow tone that polishes very well. Boxwood is also used to make the best mallet heads, both for the carpentry shop and the croquet lawn, and most of us can remember the old yellow boxwood school rulers, sometimes with the list of kings and queens on the back.
Box Trees are considered a sacred plant in Georgia, where Box twigs are taken to church on Palm Sunday to bring protection to the home and good luck to the family. Although it is poisonous to humans, boxwood oil was used in the past to try and cure epilepsy and leprosy, sadly without success, and had some use in lowering the fever caused by malaria - despite that, never ingest any part of the Box Plant. Homeopaths believe that it is a treatments for rheumatism. The box hedges of country mansions were traditionally clipped on on Derby Day in the first weekend of June, although we think that is 2 weeks too late. We don't know why Derby Day was considered special: we suspect that it was because everyone was at the races, leaving the garden free for the gardeners to do the work and tidy up before everyone got home.
Planting, Pruning and Caring for a Box Plant Hedge: Box trees require a well drained soil, but are otherwise not at all fussy and loves a bit of chalk. As your new hedge is reaching its desired height, you almost don't need to to trim it at all: Box is a slow growing plant and naturally very bushy, so really be sparing with the shears or you will be in for a long wait! Just nipping off the very tip of each stem once a year is more than enough.
Because it grows so slowly, Buxus sempervirens is also excellent as either potted or ground grown topiary.
In a long hot, dry summer (if we ever get one!) all types of box can get sun scorched if they are in full sun all day. This is a bit unsightly, but won't really harm your hedge at all. To avoid this, it is advised not to use overhead sprinklers: the water droplets on the leaves can concentrate the sun's rays. It is essential to pick an overcast day to trim the hedge, as the newly cut growth is very vulnerable to scorch.
Box Hedging Planting Distances: Plant your Box hedge using 5 plants per metre - 20cms apart - in a single row. The Box plants in the trough - pictured above - are 30/40cms sized plants photographed immediately after planting.
Are you looking for something else? We also sell Dwarf Box hedging plants for smaller topiary and cloud and even lower formal hedging.
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