Box hedge health advice

Hi all,

I am planning to renovate our box hedges but I noticed that since winter they've gone quite yellow in general. You can also see that one particular branch has died I think as it's almost completely bleached (see attached pictures). I've read yellowing can be environmental or down to infections- some kind of mining fly but less common in UK. We have 3 separate hedges and all of them have this yellowing.

A second question in relation to renovation is that you can see in one of the pictures that the growth is at the tips of the stems and this branches are at least 1m from the trunk, would you consider this leggy for box and can I cut back to the main stem on one side this year, don't want to do too much in one go.

I only have shears to do this but have been offered a hedge trimmer but I'm concerned that these are not so good for them.

Thanks for any advice.

 

in the UK you have box blight now the box moth caterpillar ...

Monty Don must have dug up at least 90% of the ones he had growing slowly going out of fashion with all the xtra problems it has

 

You're lucky to only have had that issue @Mattyp I got rid of all of them and replaced with yew and small leaved euonymous. Your hedge looks it wasn't trimmed tightly early on so you have all that poofy growth. If that was mine I would give it a radical trim to make it tighter.

 

Yes i am a little loathed to cut it right back in case it doesn't regrow but i would do the inner facing side one year and then the outer side next year. I reckon it might look awful for a while, thats if it comes back at all. So not obvious what this issue is specifically from the pictures at least? I'll maybe put some leaves under my microscope and see if i can see anything interesting..

 

Other than needing a hard cut back and then a trim to shape of the new growth it looks quite healthy to me.
I'm thinking the yellow part has grown without chlorophyll, which is kind of how variegated plants arise, but being totally yellow I doubt it could survive on its own.

 

Yes, I would trim out the yellow bit. Doing any other tidying over a couple of yrs is a good idea as the plant will still have plenty of greenery to work with whilst it sends out some new growth on the barer bits.

I've lost mine to the wretched box moth caterpillar. I don't know where you are in the country, @Mattyp, but you seem to have been lucky enough to avoid it so far.

 

I have a small confession to make, in the area where these images were taken, I cut out some branches earlier in the year where it was merging with a cotoneaster next to it. This is why you can easily see in to the main stem. Perhaps it was damaged somehow as part of that, I cut it a bit early probably, but was good timing for the cotoneaster. I hope this won't happen when i renovate. For the branch cutting I mainly used bypass loppers. I'm in scotland but I read this caterpillar has made it across the UK now.. Thanks for the comments

 

Speaking from personal experience, I'm pretty certain it's not the dreaded caterpillars. You could try giving it a feed with something like Growmore, or Vitax do a specialist box feed.
Agree about cutting off the yellow section.

You can cut box back pretty hard, around late May early June is probably the best time. Do it on a cloudy day when there's no humidity around. I'd also stick with the shears rather than a hedge trimmer, you have more control that way

 

Yes at least with those if it's something big enough eating it, it should be obvious to see. I will stick with the shears and loppers then and consider feeding it post chop. Might mulch it too with some bark. Thank you