Garden Planning

Boxwoods are the cornerstone of gardens across the world, providing structure and evergreen color in formal and informal settings alike. Whether you shape your boxwood into hedges and topiary or use them as an architectural element in perennial beds and borders, you want your boxwood shrubs to stand up to environmental stress and pest pressure. The breeders of the Better Boxwood collection combined improved disease resistance and cold hardiness with handsome plant forms to create boxwood plants that simply perform better in the garden. Here’s a look at how to use these garden heroes in the landscape and which popular...

If you're a fan of the classic boxwood look, you’re going to love Better Boxwood! This new collection has all the elegance and lush greenery of traditional boxwoods but with a groundbreaking twist. In our latest video, join plant expert Kip McConnell as he shares the exciting story behind Better Boxwood – the first collection of scientifically bred blight-resistant boxwood available in the U.S. Why is Better Boxwood a Big Deal? Boxwoods have been garden cornerstones for centuries, framing gardens and historic estates with their evergreen charm. However, over the past two decades, a disease known as boxwood blight has...

Laura Boissonnault’s cottage garden is a lush New Jersey oasis that serves as a canvas for creativity as she explores new and exciting plants. Chronicling her gardening journey at “How’s It Growing?,” every season, master gardener Laura shows how charm and structure meld in perfect harmony in the landscape. At the core of Laura's garden design are boxwoods, which lend both form and elegance to her cottage-style landscape. Lining pathways, serving as container accents, and providing living boundaries, Laura’s boxwoods have become a central feature of her landscape. But when her legacy boxwoods were threatened, she turned to Better Boxwood®...

How to Use Boxwood in Informal Gardens  While many of us associate boxwoods with formal gardens and topiary, these versatile shrubs are equally at home in less formal settings. In fact, there are endless ways to use boxwoods in naturalistic and informal garden designs. Boxwood shrubs provide much-needed structure and winter color to even the most free-ranging perennial plantings and cottage gardens. They make lovely accents, even without fussy pruning and shaping, and are perfect for marking transitions in the landscape. Boxwoods are tough plants, making an excellent selection for year-round containers. Boxwoods are popular landscape plants for good reason....