Boxwood Blight has definitely been a concern over the last couple of seasons in Connecticut. The blight, that has been in CT since 2011, has only been a rear problem in 2011, 2019 and 2020. Those season seemed to provide plenty of favorable weather for the blight. We had two clients that have had Boxwood Blight. One in 2019 and one in 2020. I’ll be the first to say it’s scary. If you’re unfortunate enough to get Boxwood Blight, you’ll know it very quickly. It has the capability to move throughout a property very quickly, killing all Boxwoods in its path. Interestingly, both of our cases involved Buxus sempervirens. I decided about 15 years ago that we’d stop using the straight American Boxwood. In both of these cases, we inherited these landscapes and Boxwood from others. In my mind, Buxus sempervirens was never as ironclad as other Boxwood varieties. I noticed that Buxus sempervirens always seemed to have little disease issues plaguing the plant. Buxus sempervirens also wasn’t as hardy as other varieties and who likes wrapping Boxwoods? I know I don’t! For many years we’ve been growing and exclusively using Buxus ‘Green Mountain’, Buxus ‘Wintergreen’ and Buxus ‘Green Velvet’. These have worked well for us over the years in CT and especially in Litchfield County. There are new varieties coming to market that we’ll be growing in our nursery from here on out. The Boxwood we will be transitioning to will be Buxus ‘Little Missy’ and the Buxus Nexgen varieties. Boxwood of this lineage are highly resistant to Boxwood Blight. No one is willing to come out and say resistant due to liability issues but essentially these Boxwood are so resistant that no one has been able to infect these varieties with Boxwood Blight. That’s a good sign for the future of Boxwood, a garden staple of landscapes everywhere.
Best Boxwood for CT?
Best Boxwood for CT?
Best Boxwood for CT?
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Richard Schipul
For the last 30 years, I have owned the landscape company Designing Eden LLC based in New Milford, CT. We offer landscape designs, landscape installations and garden maintenance services in Fairfield and Litchfield County Connecticut. I am currently the only Nationally Certified Landscape Designer in Litchfield County and sit on the board of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers and Mad Gardeners.