By Tammy Sons
American Boxwood Shrubs
Boxwood, or Buxus, is a genus containing about seventy species of plants. They can be found in parts of Asia, Africa, South and Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe and Madagascar. Some, like the European and Asian species, are tolerant to frost, and the others are sub-tropical or tropical.
The American Boxwood is easily the most versatile and useful Boxwood when it comes to creating outdoor plants. It is a slow-growing shrub that is evergreen. It grows very densely and can be very easily pruned into shape. During mid or late spring, you will see small, light yellow or cream blossoms appearing that are scented but are without petals.
Uses
American Boxwood shrubs are extremely dense, and they become denser if you trim them. Because of how well they take to such pruning, they are excellent to use as privacy screens. If you want a tight, low hedge you can plant them every three feet. If you want more of a property divider then you plant them every five feet, and if you leave them without any pruning, they will naturally grow to be about ten feet tall.
Popularity
These shrubs are quite popular and can be used in practically any garden. You can shear them into geometric shapes if you fancy them that way, to give your garden a formal setting. For a more casual look to your garden, you can leave the American Boxwood to grow into their natural shape.
Many people like having these shrubs around because of their variegated foliage. There are cultivars of variegated foliage so you can always get different effects. American Boxwood are used greatly for making hedges because of how well they respond to pruning.
Care Tips
All boxwood shrubs have broad, shallow roots, so you have to be careful not to cultivate very closely around them as the digging and planting might cause damage to their fragile root system. This will in turn damage the rest of the shrub.
The best thing to have around these shrubs is grass because they just need to be cut and do not need any digging. Alternatively, you can use a porous material like river gravel to carpet your garden because it will allow water to easily reach the shrub's root system. On the other hand, if you have paving stones or bricks in your garden, they will make it much harder for enough nutrients and water to reach the shrub's root system, so they will not thrive.
Additionally, you can use two or three inches of organic mulch to cool the roots and keep them from becoming too dry. To keep diseases away, keep the shrubs pruned so that light reaches the inner branches and plant them in a well-drained location with just the right amount of fertilizer.
These plants are quite cold hardy, being able to withstand heavy ice and snow. They are resistant to most diseases as well as drought. Most pests tend to leave the American Boxwood species alone even though they feed on other species of Boxwoods.
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