Think outside the (English) box(wood)

By Don Davis
Published: June 18, 2008

Your days of growing English boxwood will come to an end when your plants develop a root disease called English boxwood decline.

The decline often follows stress. A complex of fungi that lives in the soil has been associated with the decline, and there is no way to get rid of it. No products at the store can cure decline.

This disease has been rampant for at least a generation. It has caused thousands of English boxwood in our area to loose vigor and die prematurely. It remains visible in the discolored leaves and dead branches of boxwood from one end of Lynchburg to another.

Replacing sickly English boxwood with new English boxwood is not going to work. The new plants will be infected and killed by decline. Your best option is to switch to a different plant.

Fortunately, there are many other boxwood varieties you can grow, and none of them is troubled by English boxwood decline. Several of these varieties of boxwood have a size, shape and color very much like English boxwood. They also are better adapted to sun than English boxwood.

Here are five types of boxwood worth considering as replacements for the English:

—Green Beauty is a Japanese boxwood, which stays dark green in winter. It grows to a 7-foot height in 15 years, according to nurseryman Paul M. Saunders, author of “Best of the Best Boxwood Cultivars Manual.”

—Morris Dwarf is a Japanese boxwood from the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia. You can expect it to grow to be 3-feet tall in 40 years. It looks so much like English boxwood that was planted in a formal garden at Mount Vernon, a garden where English boxwood was in decline. The garden’s sunny exposure was just right for Morris Dwarf, but too much for English boxwood.

—Morris Midget is slightly smaller and smoother in appearance, and it also came from Morris Arboretum. This boxwood grows about an inch a year and, according to Saunders, it is “one of the most compact of all boxwoods.”

—Green Pillow is a littleleaf boxwood with a mounding growth habit. In his book, Saunders compares it to “a squatty, half-inflated basketball.” Its new leaves remain bright green for months, and growth is slow. Green Pillow will reach a height of 30 inches in 30 years.

—Justin Brouwers is a variety of Chinese boxwood, which originated in Williamsburg. It was planted at Mount Vernon, along with the Morris Dwarf, in full sun, and it is doing fine there. Its leaves are darker green, narrower and more pointed than those of English boxwood. This boxwood grows into a perfect globe, and no trimming is needed unless you prefer some other shape.

My own Justin Brouwers was planted more than 15 years ago in a dry location, getting a half-day of sun. It has had no fertilizing, no watering and no mulch, and today it is 27 inches tall.
Examples of these and dozens of other boxwood may be seen at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., and at the State Arboretum of Virginia at Blandy Farm near Winchester.