It takes a hard clip
Box breaks happily from old wood, so a shape can be cut back and brought round again. That is what makes it the plant for parterres, knots and anything with a straight line in it.
Buxus sempervirens
Box hedging
Nothing else clips like box. Small dark leaves, dense enough to hold a sharp edge, and slow enough that it stays where you put it — which is why it has edged formal gardens for four hundred years.
What box is good at
And what it is not. Worth knowing before you buy a hundred of them.
It is slow
Roughly 10 to 15cm a year once it is settled. Good news for a finished edge that stays finished; bad news if you want a 5ft screen, where yew or laurel will get you there far sooner.
It is not fussy about light
Sun or part shade, and most soils as long as they drain. What it will not forgive is sitting wet, and a damp, still corner is exactly where blight gets a hold.
How many, and how far apart
For a low edge — the kind that runs round a bed or along a path — plant small box 20 to 25cm apart, which is four or five plants to the metre. Closer than that costs more and gains you a season at most.
For a hedge you want at knee to waist height, use bigger plants and go 30cm apart, three to the metre. Plant in a single straight line, not a zig-zag; box is dense enough that it does not need the help.
Tell us the length of the run and roughly how tall you want it to finish, and we will work out the number and price it.
Clipping it
One cut a year is enough for most box, in early summer once the first flush of growth has hardened. If you want it crisp into the autumn, give it a second light trim in late summer, and leave it alone after that so the new growth hardens before the frosts.
Clip on a dull day. Bright sun on freshly cut leaves scorches the edges brown, and it takes a whole season to grow out.
Box is hungry. A feed and a mulch in spring is the difference between deep green and tired yellow-green, and a hungry plant is a plant that gets ill.
Before you commit: box blight and the box tree caterpillar
Box has had a hard decade, and in a damp, enclosed spot the RHS would steer you to something else. We still supply it, because clipped box is unmatched and most gardens grow it perfectly well — but if you have lost box before, say so first.
What we would plant instead →
Box in the range
Hedging plants for a new run, and clipped pieces for the corners and the ends. Most box is lifted to order, so availability moves with the season — ask and we will tell you what is ready.
Need more box than this?
These are the pieces we photograph. We buy to order from growers we trust, so tell us the size and the quantity and we will get it.
Ask us for it →
When to plant it
Pot-grown box can go in at any time of year, which is most of what we sell. If it is going in during the summer, water it properly — a deep soak once or twice a week through its first season, not a daily splash.
Autumn and winter is still the better window. The ground is warm, the plant is asleep, and the rain does the watering for you.
New stock in every week
Be first to hear what has come in and what is in season.