I was wondering what would be the best video to watch for boxwoods. I don’t think Ryan has done any boxwoods yet on the stream. I have watched the two broadleaf evergreen streams.
I am kind of one of those guys that want to see specifics. Like if he says this applies to all broadleafs, I want to see it performed on all broadleafs so I understand how it applies.
Anyway. I have a boxwood that I picked up this spring. Its growth is starting to get a bit long. 5 or so pairs of leaves. I am not sure if it was ever trimmed earlier in the year or not. I am assuming I should cut these back to two pairs?
I’m a noob, so take this with a grain of salt, but my limited experience does include several buxus.
Is this in development or refinement? I have several in development and I only worry about preventing structural problems and wiring movement into what will eventually be the trunk and primary branches. I balance leaving as much foliage as possible with preventing heavy shading of the interior.
It is hard to get these to thicken so leave as much leaf mass as possible without causing flaws down the road. The leaves/branching are opposite and a healthy tree will end up with a bunch of trident shaped nodes, so I select those down to an alternating pattern.
For refinement, go down to either one pair, or two alternate buds if leaving the main branch. These get dense easily so after creating a pad it often needs to be thinned. They do get bare branches where shaded out on the interior so leave the canopy a little bit open.
My goals with my boxwoods are to accomplish the kinds of shapes one might associate with oaks, but that might just be my love of oaks shining through.
+1 for some boxwood videos. The Mirai team has said they’re going to start a broadleaf evergreen class series, so hopefully that means we’ll get more variety.