I know nothing about gardening and landscaping but I am in the process of redoing the raised beds on the foundation in the front of our home. We've chosen green velvet boxwoods which are 3-4 feet high/wide at maturity. I have read all the stuff about weeding and soil so I think I have that down but I am confused as to plant size and spacing. I was speaking with one woman who said smaller plants should be placed closer together but I was thinking you would space them based on how far apart they should be when they reach their full size. I have several small #3 shrubs that I got at a nursery but they have no more and I need a few more. Another nursery has #5 shrubs which are bigger. Can the different sizes be planted together? Should they be spaced the same distance? How long will it take for the #3 to catch up to the #5?
I planted 4 boxwoods in front of a rock wall about 4 years ago, 2 feet apart, don't know the variety. I figured they'd fill in and we'd have a nice little hedge in front of the wall, but nope. They have been really slow to grow and last spring, one of them got funky looking and seemed like it was going to die but is now starting to come back. I don't know what the deal is with them. That's all I got.
It depends. Do you want them to form a hedge or look like individual plants? Are they the sun or shade? Will you trim them every year or let them run wild? Don't worry about what the plant looks like now, think about how you want them to look in the future. Shady will grow slower. Neatly trimmed hedges need less space. Anywhere from 24" - 48" would work, depending on the look you want. will711 knows more about this stuff than most.
They will be getting full sun. I don't mind trimming them once or twice a year. They are going in raised beds on the foundation in the front of our house. My wife likes the hedge look but I'm not so crazy about that look on the foundation. I'd rather have a little bit of daylight not much but a little) between them. The house is a good 40-50 fett from the street so i want the end result to be each boxwood grown to it's maximum height/width which is 3-4 feet. I want to be able to see them nicely from the street. I don't want to trim them so much that they don't reach their maximum size. Does this sound logical?
I have about 5 green velvelts and spaced them apart per how big they get a maturity. I wanted more of the specimen look vs a hedge look. I will say they require more trimming than any other plants in my landscaping. I prob would not buy more. I'm looking at more northern beauty hollies. I have these, and they stay compact and need little maintainence.
No, I didn't add anything since I planted them, but this year I put some 10-10-10 on them. The wall they're in front of faces north and gets indirect sun for most of the day and they don't get soaked, but get a decent amount of water. Now that they're up over the top of the wall, they seem to be doing better.
That's what I'm going for too, the specimen look. When I think of the hedge look I think of mansion or something very formal like the Robin Masters Estate on Magnum PI and that is not our home. We are somewhere between a formal mansion and an outhouse. One of the reasons I went with Green Velvet bwood is I read that they are low maintenance. You say you spaced them out using their mature size as a guidline so what did that actually work out to be for on center spacing and how much space was in between them when they hit maturity?
You read my mind. 48" was the number I had in mind. Honest to goodness. I figured that since the garden folks say mature size is 3-4 feet I would split the difference which would be 3.5 feet. Then I thought 6 inches between plants would be a good spacing for the specimen look without showing too much foundation behind it so that gave me 48" on center.
I planted one English Boxwood at corner of front yard near the sidewalk in spring 1997.Slow growing of course but its doing quite well. Almost 4 feet across equally as tall,I've basically let it go natural with just trimming a few uneven stragglers and/or branch tips turned brown from a super cold snap.Its been down to -23 Fahrenheit here couple nights several winters ago,the whole plant is still thriving.
my beds were a little longer than I thought. 14 feet on each side of main entrance. I ended up spacing them about 41 inches on center, 4 in each bed. I added some new loom and then made sure there was a lot of compost and peat moss where the bushes were going in. I added mulch and it looks nice now except I think I may have planted one or two of them too low. I plan on fertilizing them in the fall and doing the burlap bag thing in the winter. Hopefully they will fill out the beds nicely in a few years as they're rather small now. I'll have to get a pic. Isn't that the rule? No pic or it didn't happen? My wife wouldn't believe I spent a whole weekend planting new bushes either if she didn't live there!
It hit -15 several times last winter and my boxwood bushes all look great....without bags on them. I'm not sure I'd bother with it.
Mine looks pretty good after 17 years & no maintenance to speak of.When the branches are weighed down with heavy snow I gently knock that off ASAP with a broom so to minimize any damage.
