Box(Buxus) Hedging Q & As

If your Buxus has Box Blight it will lose leaves and have bare patches. Another tell tale sign is small black streaks in the stems of infected plants.

Watch: How to identify Box Blight

If your Buxus has a Box Moth Caterpillar infestation you will first notice loss of leaves but not totally. You will see curly remnants where the Caterpillars have eaten the leaves and left the structure of the leaf. On closer inspection you will see small cobweb like structures which the caterpillars have hatched from. And lastly when looking inside the plant you will find active Caterpillars.

Watch: How to identify Box Moth Caterpillar

If your plants have Box Blight, they will always have it. It stays within the soil and can only be rid of by removing the plants and replacing the substrate totally. If your plants are totally void of green then this is your only option and we wouldn't currently recommend replanting Buxus. If you do have green on the plants then they can be treated and with the right care can return to normal healthy plants. We recommend treating affected areas with Signum (a professional horticultural fungicide) and applying an appropriate fertiliser (Top Buxus products or Liquid Seaweed) regularly throughout the growing season.

If you find that you have an infestation of Box Caterpillar you need to act fast. If you have a reasonably small amount of Buxus you could pick out all the Caterpillars you can find. You then need to treat the plants with a suitable insecticide immediately. We treat regularly as a preventative from April. You must also apply appropriate fertiliser (Top Buxus products or Liquid Seaweed) to aid recovery and maintain health.

In both cases, complete loss of foliage can be fatal and will kill the plant. If however there is still green foliage then recovery can be achieved. Buxus is fairly hardy and can regrow relatively quickly with the right treatment.

Trimming should be done in the growing months. We recommend twice - once in early June and once again in August. This keeps them looking smart all year round. You should avoid cutting in the Autumn and Winter as the new growth can be susceptible to frost damage.

We do renovation work and reshaping of Buxus hedges, parterres and topiary in the Spring. New growth will then follow as the weather warms and new growth shoots.

We recommend not to plant Buxus at this time (2026). We see in the gardens that we visit that it is really getting harder and harder to keep Buxus healthy. This may change in the future if variants of the plant are grown to counter, but currently we don't see that in the UK.

This is completely subjective but we like and recommend the following for low formal hedging - Yew (Taxus Baccata), Lonicera Nitida and Lonicera Nitida Baggesons Gold, Euonymus Green Spire/Jean Hugues, Lavender, Rosemary, Ilex Crenata and Osmanthus x Burkwoodii.

Trim at the right times and remove all cuttings. Cuttings left can be perfect spots for fungus to form. Treat your hedge with suitable fertiliser during the growing season and treat with a suitable insecticide from April through to September to prevent caterpillar damage. Make sure you disinfect (with a horticultural disinfectant) any tools used to trim when moving between sections of plants.