I often get asked about pruning and trimming plants in the landscape. I thought I would share this picture of the boxwoods in our nursery.
I took the picture about a week after the first frost in Litchfield County. If you remember, this year, our first frost was really a freeze. Temperatures in Litchfield County reached down to 20 degrees which is uncommon for a first frost of the season. Getting back to trimming, anytime from spring to late summer is fine for trimming boxwoods. I always tell people to get their trimming done by mid August. The reason is that trimming plants will actually trigger growth. You want that new growth to harden off before cold weather arrives. The majority of our boxwoods in the nursery were trimmed in the beginning of August but a row was skipped or forgotten. I had an employee trim the Boxwoods the next time we had some extra time. That trimming occurred later in August or the beginning of September. Because the first frost of the season was a hard one, the Boxwoods that were trimmed later in the season did not have enough time to harden off. Interestingly, the Boxwoods that were trimmed just a couple of weeks earlier made it through the frost just fine. Will these Boxwoods die? No, but they will be unsightly until I can trim off all the damage next spring which is extra work for us. So just remember, when maintaining your landscape, make sure your evergreens are trimmed earlier rather than lately in the growing season.
