Korean Boxwood

#TeachingTuesday: Plant of the Week—Korean Boxwood

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, whether you were celebrating Easter, Passover, or just a lovely weekend. Hopefully you were able to get outside a little bit and enjoy the beautiful spring weather and see some blooming trees and plants.

Our Plant of the Week is Korean boxwood, Buxus sinica var. insularis (formerly known as Buxus microphylla var. koreana).  A common cultivar is ‘Wintergreen’, and it is also a popular parent for several hybrid boxwoods, like ‘Green Velvet’ and ‘Green Mountain’, which are crosses between Korean and English boxwood.

Korean boxwood is an excellent evergreen for rounded shrubs and hedges. Boxwood has dense, fine foliage, grows very slowly, and responds well to pruning. Korean boxwood can turn bronze in the winter if exposed to bright sunlight and harsh winds. It is one of the hardiest boxwoods, able to survive winter temps of -20 to -25 degrees F.

Pests for boxwood include the boxwood leaf miner, which eats the leaves from the inside out, the boxwood psyllid which attacks new growth, and boxwood blight, which is a fungus that kills boxwoods and spreads rapidly (be careful where you buy your boxwoods from).

If you want a great resource to learn more about different boxwood cultivars, cultivation, and diseases, check out the free guide by Saunders Brothers Nursery. 

ID Tips

• Small, opposite, light green leaves with smooth edges.
• Foliage turns bronze in the winter, especially in windy areas.
• Square stems with grooves running between each set of leaves.
• Flowers are very small and hardly noticeable, although bees like them.
• May smell faintly of cat urine, although this species smells less than some others.