Garden Planning

field of Better Boxwoods at the nursery

Discover the Unique Qualities of Better Boxwood Varieties

Welcome to the Better Boxwood collection, where innovation meets elegance. This collection features four unique varieties, each meticulously bred for specific landscape uses and traits. Whether you're aiming for a formal garden, a lush ground cover, or a striking hedge, there's a Better Boxwood variety perfect for your needs. Let's dive into the distinctive characteristics and ideal applications of each variety.  Renaissance. Low-Growing Elegance.  Growth Habit: Renaissance boasts a low-growing habit with a slow growth rate, making it a perfect choice for those who prefer minimal maintenance.  Leaf Characteristics: This variety features small, glossy, dark green leaves that retain their...

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Woman kneeling beside a boxwood

From Blight to Bright: A Real-Life Better Boxwood Transformation

Whether you love lush trees, joyful planters, abundant blooms, or artful hedges, Erin Schanen’s Wisconsin landscape is a garden designer’s dream. A skillful gardener, writer, and content creator whose videos chronicling her gardening journey have educated and inspired millions, Erin is always eager to introduce new plants to her garden - and to the world. However, three years ago, her garden saw the addition of one particularly unwelcome visitor: boxwood blight. Erin first spotted “splotchy” black lesions on the leaves of a boxwood grouping on her property, and a little searching soon uncovered the disease’s telltale black streaks on the...

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A person kneels in a lush garden surrounded by various flowers and greenery, smiling at the camera. Brick edging defines the garden path.

Which Traditional Boxwoods do Better Boxwoods Replace? 

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...

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Get to Know the New Better Boxwood!

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...

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