A little at a time
The boxwood garden project is finally beginning to look resemble the finished product I envisioned 2 years ago. It is now all English boxwood and 100% pruned; the new growth has been strong on the bushes since they broke dormancy a few weeks ago.
Order is coming out of the chaos FINALLY….the perspective from the fence as of this past weekend is below:
It isn’t done but it can finally be moved to the “it may actually be finished one day” category.
For reference, this area was a combination of overgrown English boxwoods and really really overgrown common or American boxwoods. There were damaged bushes and completely empty spots where bushes had met their demise via drought or falling branches.
From a ladder looking down at the same section from the back side, taken in March of last year:
Last summer after the first hard pruning (done early last spring) from the opposite side of the garden:
In November of last year after looking towards the back fence. You can see the English boxwoods (on the left) where I cut the backs out but left the fronts full sized; this gave a “normal” view from the house but let sun into the back and center of the bush to promote new growth.
From January of this year before the great 2nd hard pruning and series of moves; the bench in the left of the picture against the fence is where I took the picture at the top of the thread this past weekend.
Mrs cohutt has been extremely patient throughout this journey and has trusted that there actually was a plan or a “method to my madness”. If you see her thank her for me. 😉
An encore presentation:
Behind cohutt's fence 
Wow, what a difference a year makes. 🙂
Awesome. Inspired by your site, I recently built a set of 4 by 4 raised beds and planted a spring / summer garden. I’m still learning – but the process is fun.
How did you get the boxwoods out of the ground? Did you simply dig them out with a shovel, or use a chain and a tractor / truck? I have some shrubs that I’d like to move from one side of the house to the other, and am concerned about leaving enough “root system” for the transplant.
Thank you
The American or common boxwoods have wide and fairly shallow roots. I used a short handled flat end shovel to cut a circle around them then pried them up with a standard shovel. Once out I lifted them onto some hand trucks or onto a piece of metal roof and then dragged them over to their new locations.
The English boxwood surprised me in that they had much more of a tap root and needed a lot more digging to safely free them from the ground. At that point it was too late to turn back though….
I would only chain out plants you just need to get rid of-