Buxus Sempervirens

I planted a row of Buxus Sempervirens about 4 years ago. I bought them for £1 each, they were just twiggs but now they are knee height and are looking good.

I want to continue the row by planting a few more, my questions;

1/. Can I plant them in the next couple of weeks or is it getting too close to winter.

2/. I will have to buy bigger plants this time, but should I plant them as close as I did the others (about 12" apart)?

Many thanks.

 

Box plants are usually planted closer together than other hedges (5 plants per metre?), and therefore uneven spacing will show up for years! Having said that, it is quite common to plant larger hedge plants further apart (I've never quite understood that - if a hedge needs 3 plants per metre how can it need less if the plants are already 6 feet tall? - or why not just plant the smaller plants further apart if they are going to be a 6' hedge anyway?)

You aren't going to buy knee-high plants for £1 each I'm afraid! £25 for a plant in a 10L pot I reckon :(

If you buy bare rooted plants then they should be planted Nov - Feb, or March at the latest. November is ideal in my opinion - before the onset of Winter and gives them time to recover a bit before the stress of the growing season. I doubt you will get bare root plants taller than 40cm / 15". You might get root-balled plants that are taller, but they will probably be Topiary specimens, so pot-grown is probably the only solution for taller plants. Pot-grown plants can be planted at any time, but Nov-Feb/Mar is still the best time.

You need to be careful that the new plants are the same variety as the old if you need them to match.

Lay some leaky-hose if its a long hedge, so you can water easily during dry periods over the first 2 or 3 years - give them a good soak, not too frequently (twice a week in drought is plenty, but make sure they get plenty each time, you need to encourage the roots to go down, hence "soaking" the soil - if you water little and often the roots will all grow on the surface). Plenty of organic matter incorporated in the planting trench before hand will help the hedge establish more quickly.

 

My local supplier will have bare root plants at about 12" - 18" high and bushy available from the beginning of November. If you buy more than 5 they are £1.69 each. I would suggest you do as Kristen sugggests but plant them in a zig-zag so you get more plants per metre. I don't know where you are but here in S.W. Kent, the best place I've found is http://www.hopesgrovenurseries.co.uk/. (No connection, just a good, specialist nursery and they will deliver.) Have a look at their website as it gives you ideas for planting.

Chris

 

Personally I wouldn't do zig-zag for box (although I would for most hedges that I wanted to be "thick"), just a single straight row. But, as the saying goes, if you ask two gardeners you get three opinions!

 

I planted a box 'parterre'(yeah ok, a hedge!) at the beginning of this year, along the path at the front of the house and used this spacing guidelines. I got the plants in one of those deals Aldi/Lidl do and so far all have survived and are bushing up nicely. With that spacing, the gaps are almost filled up 9 months on.

 

Do you think that 5-per-metre is overkill then? (I've not got a "parterre" yet, and its not a hedge - 'coz a hedge is straight, and a parterre is a polygon-shape :thumb: but I've taken over 1,000 cuttings this year, so hoping to have one next year ... or the year after that ..)

 

I don't mind if it is, as I would prefer the hedge to thicken up quicker and we know how slowly box grows...

Shall I go and take a picture of progress so far?

 

Hahaha ... you can if you like! Take one-a-day and we can have a time-lapse movie - or will the thread be more like an electronic flick-book!

 

Hi Apprentice,

Just joined the forum and this is my first post, but I have quite a bit of experience with hedges so I thought I'd give you my two penneth!

This time of year is fine for planting Buxus, just make sure that if you use bare root hedging not to expose the roots to cold winds as no plants really like this at all (as the root system is never expected to experience such conditions).

As for spacing; it will depend on the size of new plants you are putting in but it would probably be best to use your 'eye' and judgement as to what will make the new hedging fit in with the older hedge. As previously mentioned gaps look unsightly so you could always put maybe one more extra plant per metre to compensate this.

I bought over 25 metres of box in November last year from 'Benson Hedges' (not the ciggie maunfacturer! these sell mail order hedging) and they were all fine and took well and have now filled out nicely.

Hope that helps, OrganicPlums.

 

Have a lot of box hedging albeit in a relatively small garden. It can be seriously time consuming when the growth really gets going and one thing I noticed was that no matter how many plants per yard/metre, any variation in soil conditions will cause variation in height/growth making the hedge trimming even more time consuming.

The other thing to bear in mind when planting a low hedge of this type is the potential for back-ache when trimming and shaping - speaking from experience!

 

Does anyone use the dwarf box (Suffruticosa I think??) - I'm curious as to what height of hedge is the cutoff-point between using the dwarf and cutting a taller box "a bit short"

 

Cuttings are always a good move, for fill in any failed gaps later. just put 5 or so in a pot, bit of hormone rooting powder & a plastic bag to keep the humidity up.

Nothing wrong with a few spares.

 

Sorry to split hairs (or hedges) Kristen, but a parterre is not necessarily a polygon. Here's a definition I found:
'Parterre' is a French word meaning 'on the ground'. It refers to a level ornamental [COLOR=#1183c9 !important][COLOR=#1183c9 !important]flower[/COLOR][/COLOR] bed that is enclosed by low hedges or bricks.
So, really, it is just a flower bed but I take your point about a straight row being a hedge.

I've just drawn a garden for a client, transforming a 14m long boring bed into something more interesting with four "parterres" filled with lavender or Nepepta. These are seperated by large, metallic glazed pots filled with Helictotrichon, with a Lutyens bench in the middle. When it's done I'll post pictures.

Chris

 

"a parterre is not necessarily a polygon"

Indeed, it could be a curly-cue of course ... where the ends don't join up - so anything that isn't a straight hedge then :D Interesting about the translation, I'd never thought about it before, but even for my rubbish school-boy French its not hard. I like "a level ornamental flowerbed"

I think that parterres with "segments" that are planted with "something" often mean that the middle bit is a bit boring because it isn't tall enough to be seen, and also is hard to reach to plant / dead-head / etc. and in that vein I liked the "top hat" approach that I saw this summer at East Ruston. (their Dutch Garden [photos a bit higher up the page on that link] may give you some ideas for how to clip your client's Box in a couple of years time :D:D)