For generations, boxwoods have been a familiar part of American gardens, lining walkways, framing entrances, and giving landscapes structure through every season. Many of those plantings have taken years to grow into the hedges we see today. When boxwood blight began damaging them, gardeners faced a difficult choice: how could they replace a beloved shrub without losing the look that made them so useful in the first place?
That question is at the heart of Better Boxwood®. The collection was developed to offer the familiar form of boxwood with improved resistance to the disease threatening it.
Where the Better Boxwood Story Began
Boxwood blight had been affecting European gardens since the early 1990s. The fungal disease can cause dark stem lesions and rapid leaf drop, and once it takes hold, replacing a damaged hedge with another susceptible boxwood may leave the new plants facing the same problem.
Belgian grower and breeder Didier Hermans of Herplant BV began looking for a better option. Working with the Flemish Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research, he set out to breed boxwoods with greater natural resistance to blight. The plants still had to offer what gardeners expect from boxwood, though: attractive evergreen foliage, strong growth, and a shape that could be used in hedges, borders, and formal designs.
Finding that combination took time. Promising selections were bred, observed, and tested over more than 20 years, with each judged for its response to blight as well as its performance in the landscape. The varieties that emerged from that work became the Better Boxwood collection.
Why the Need Extended Beyond Europe
While the breeding program continued, boxwood blight arrived in the United States. First identified here in 2011, the disease has since been found in more than 25 states. American and English boxwoods, both widely used in established landscapes, are particularly vulnerable.
For historic properties such as Reynolda, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, protecting boxwoods also means protecting the character of the gardens they help define. Homeowners may face the same challenge on a smaller scale when a hedge that frames their front entry or borders a path begins to decline. Fungicides can be part of a boxwood blight treatment program, but managing the disease may also call for monitoring, sanitation, and repeated applications. That made the prospect of a blight-resistant boxwood especially valuable.
A Place in Historic Gardens
The new varieties began to find their place in historic European gardens, where boxwoods are essential to the design. At Het Loo Palace in the Netherlands, Renaissance™ is among the varieties planted in the King’s Garden, where low, clipped hedges trace its intricate Baroque patterns.
At Château de Villandry in France, Heritage™ forms the low boxwood borders around the ornamental vegetable garden. The neatly clipped hedges give each bed a clear outline while the vegetables and flowers bring color and change throughout the growing season.
Bringing Better Boxwood to American Gardens
Better Boxwood became the first collection of scientifically bred blight-resistant boxwood varieties available in the United States. With different sizes and growth habits across the collection, gardeners can choose a plant suited to the space they have in mind, whether that is a low border, a foundation planting, or a taller hedge.
No boxwood is immune to blight, but improved resistance gives gardeners an alternative to highly susceptible varieties when planning a new planting or replacing an old one. After more than two decades of breeding and testing, Better Boxwood helps gardeners continue using boxwood for the lasting structure and character it brings to a landscape.
Ready to join the fight against blight?
Explore the Better Boxwood collection to find a variety suited to your garden, or use our Garden Center Locator to find a retailer near you.