Bewildered Greeny
Plant Care
Littleleaf boxwood responds very well to pruning. Hedges and plants used for edging can be trimmed in summer. Hard, rejuvenating pruning and major shaping should be done in late spring and followed by a dose of fertilizer and mulch. Don't cultivate around the shallow-rooted boxwoods.
Light: The boxwoods, including littleleaf boxwood, do well in partial shade. Newly transplanted plants especially, should be protected from midday sun. Established boxwoods do fine in full sun up North, but should be positioned in partial shade in the South.
Moisture: Boxwoods have shallow roots, so they should be mulched well and watered when the soil gets dry, especially if positioned in full sun.
Hardiness: USDA Zones 5 - 9. The cultivars of var. japonica are the most cold-hardy, and some of them are reported to be hardy to zone 4.
Propagation: Boxwood cuttings are fairly easy to root; take semiripe tip shoots in summer and root in a moist potting medium under mist or under a plastic "tent." The species and even some of the cultivars can be propagated from seeds, which require 2-3 months of chilling before they will germinate.
Japanese Boxwood Potential Bonsai
July 6, 2010
Alright so here it is.... my very first Bonsai plant. It is a Japanese Boxwood and I am pretty excited about it. I checked Home Depot and didn't find anything that caught my eye so I headed over to Lowes and found a few plants that I thought would be great to work with. I was tossing around the idea of buying a Schefflera but everything I looked at had so many trunks... I was feeling overwhelmed by it ... so I decided to start simple and cross that bridge later.
So I got a Japanese Boxwood! There was one that caught my eye early on in the search and I ended up coming back to it and buying it Now I much admit I felt a bit confused while out there looking.. still not completely sure what I was looking for but definitely gave it my best go. I was having trouble deciding what size plant to get but read somewhere that getting a one gallon plant would be good. And also on alot of the plants I wasn't even able to see the nebari even when digging for it. A few others that I was considering getting were called the heavenly bamboo ( but again with so many trunks ) pink breath of heaven but wasn't sure of it and it said they were fragile so decided against it, China Doll, and Euonymus Japonicus.
So Japanese Boxwood It was! Yay! I've already been on google researching the Japanese Boxwood and have been looking for inspiration I took some photos of it that will hopefully show you overall how it looks. I took my first step by getting the plant lets hope it was a good one!
Pruning My Japanese Boxwood
July 10, 2010
Here is my Japanese Boxwood after its very first pruning. I decided to grab my regular bush pruners, clean them up, and go at it!! (btw this was my first time "Ever" pruning "Anything" ) while out there I found myself needing something smaller to prune the smaller branches that the regular pruners couldn't reach well... so as suggested to me by someone on the Helpful Gardener forum, I grabbed the handy dandy toe nail clippers! All in All the pruning went well :) "YaY!"
After The Root Pruning July 12, 2010
Here is my Boxwood after its root pruning. This was Also my first time ever root pruning "anything" And I'm hoping that my lil' Japanese Boxwood will be ok. When I took it out of the store pot it wasn't as root bound as I was expecting it to be but it really needed a good prune. It took a long time and I ran into some things that I really wasn't really expecting like... worms! ... not being able to easily get to the base of the trunk to put a rock under it ( which eventually I did ) and the amount of roots I lost that I was not intending to lose... plus the way that my bush now leans due to the fact that the base was positioned in the pot crooked so that it appeared to be straight when I purchased it at the store ( oops ) The reason I put a rock under the base of the trunk where the tap root would normally be is to encourage better Nebari. I went through and cut out all the thick tap roots as well as the main tap root and made sure to take out any roots that seemed to curl. I kept as many fine feeder roots as I could then replanted it into a different pot with new soil... Now all this could possibly shock the plant but hopefully it'll be fine. I then gave it a really good water in its new pot and it is now in the backyard settling. All in all I think if this lil' boxy can pull through this then it'll still make a great Bonsai.
September 6, 2010
So here is my boxwood now... Not so sure it has changed much but is has definitely put on some new growth and has recovered from the root prune and transplant which made me happy :) I want to allow it to grow a bit more before I mess with it again... I may wait until Spring... cant decide. It is looking great though and seems to be pretty healthy at the moment so all is good for the time being :D
