How to Landscape With a Box Hedge

Planting Boxwood

• 1

  Have your soil tested six weeks before planting boxwood. Soil tests should be available from your nearest university extension office, and the results will include the pH and nutrient content of your soil, along with recommendations for lime, fertilizer and other soil amendments.

• 2

  Choose a location with well-drained soil and full sun or light shade. Boxwood grows best in near-neutral soil with a pH of 6.5 to 7.0. Avoid planting boxwood in deep shade, waterlogged soil or a windy location.

• 3

  Dig a hole that is twice as wide as the root ball of your boxwood plant, but no deeper. Place the plant in the hole and fill it back in with rich, porous topsoil.

• 4

  Water thoroughly as needed and do not let the soil around your boxwood dry out. Add 2 or 3 inches of an organic mulch, such as pine straw, wood chips or bark mulch, covering the surface within at least 12 inches of the plant. Boxwood should not be fertilized at the time of planting, but fertilizer may be applied later, if necessary, depending on soil conditions where you live. Choose fertilizers based on soil testing.

Landscaping

• 5

  Arrange your boxwood plants in whatever pattern you choose. Boxwood is typically used as a foundation planting, to separate, outline or enclose areas or to create a background for other plants.

• 6

  Choose the location of your boxwood based on what type of boxwood you have. Or, if you have a specific pattern in mind, take this into consideration when you choose boxwood varieties. Prostrate boxwood is often used as a ground cover in gardens, weeping boxwood works well as a topiary plant or in a container and erect forms are ideal for hedges.

• 7

  Space boxwood based on its adult size, not on its size at the time you plant it. This information -- both height and spread -- should be given to you at the time you buy boxwood. For hedges, boxwood should be planted so that when it reaches maturity the plants should just touch without crowding each other.

• 8

  Use a set of pruning shears to maintain the shape you want in your boxwood plants. Some varieties naturally grow in a round, pyramidal or other shape, but they should still be sheared during the first few years after each flush of growth to encourage development. After the first few years, you can reduce shearing to only what is necessary to maintain the desired shape.