Planting Hundreds of Boxwood Seedlings
Our annual seedling planting project continues at the farm.
My outdoor grounds crew has been very busy planting hundreds of bare-root trees and other small potted seedlings. Among them, about 300 young boxwoods. These boxwoods are still too small to plant in the garden beds, so they are planted in a section of my vegetable garden where they can be carefully maintained until they are large enough to transplant.
Enjoy these photos.
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- I love boxwood. This is a section of my long 450-foot Boxwood Allee. It runs from my stable all the way to the carriage road that leads to my hayfields and woodlands. It is so lush and green. I take very special care of these specimens – they are regularly pruned and groomed, and in winter they are covered in a layer of protective burlap. I also spray them monthly with TopBuxus Health Mix, which prevents the fungal disease called box blight and provides the plants with rich nutrients that restore new green leaves and strong branch growth.
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- I have lots of boxwood around my farm. This is my sunken Summer House Garden – a more formal garden with both English and American boxwood. Boxwood, a popular evergreen shrub in garden landscape, is a very ancient plant. Its ornamental use can be traced back to 4000 BC Egypt. The early Romans favored it in their courtyards. The wood itself is harder than oak and its foliage is dense and compact. Because of its growing habit, boxwood can be sculpted into formal hedges, topiaries, and other fanciful shapes.
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- In 2017, I decided to line both sides of my clematis pergola with boxwood. There are more than 300-shrubs now planted here, and they continue to thrive.
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- The boxwood shrubs along my winding pergola were grown in this patch located in one area of my vegetable garden next to my chicken coops. The soil is rich with nutrients, so they grew well and quickly.
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- Because the boxwood grows so well here, I plant a few hundred bare-root cuttings every year. I ordered another 300 hundred from Musser Forests, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based company specializing in conifer and hardwood seedlings and transplants. Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. Boxwood is native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
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- Here are a few bare-root seedlings, meaning they arrived free of soil on the roots. This helps reduce the price of the seedling and makes them more adaptable to the soil in which they are planted.
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- This variety is called Buxus ‘Green Mountain’. It is a vigorous evergreen shrub with bright green foliage that retains good color throughout winter. The upright, naturally cone-shaped habit makes it an excellent candidate for planting free-form or for a sculpted hedge. The leaves on boxwood branches are arranged opposite from each other, making pairs.
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- Some of the exisiting boxwood in this area is Buxus ‘Green Velvet’. This variety is a full-bodied boxwood well-suited for dense, low hedges. Its foliage also retains its rich green color throughout winter and develops a vigorous, rounded form if not pruned.
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- Chhiring begins digging holes for each of the seedlings. Because there are so many, the crew works in a production line process.
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- Each hole is about eight to 10 inches deep.
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- Next, Chhiring sprinkles a good amount of organic fertilizer into each hole. I always remind the crew, “if you eat, so should the plants.”
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- For new plants, we use M-Roots fertilizer with mycorrhizal fungi, which helps transplant survival and increases water and nutrient absorption.
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- Here is the planting hole once the M-Roots is added.
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- Next, one boxwood seedling is dropped into each hole. Chhiring does this in small batches, so the boxwood doesn’t dry out. If planting a lot, keep the new seedlings in shade until they are planted in the ground.
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- These two to three year old seedlings are only a few inches tall, but they will grow quickly in this soil.
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- Chhiring plants each specimen in a hole – keeping them all in a straight line.
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- Then, each hole is back filled, and lightly tapped to ensure good contact with the soil.
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- Pasang rakes around the boxwood to remove any weeds and to make it neat and tidy. Boxwood shrubs have shallow root systems, so it is important to keep the roots cool – a layer of mulch will also help to retain moisture.
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- These young boxwoods will remain here for a couple years before they are transplanted into the garden beds.
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- These were planted here a couple of years ago. They’ve already grown quite a bit.
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- Pasang starts to plant another row of young seedlings. The crew was able to plant more than 160 seedlings in just a couple hours.
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- These plants are placed about a foot apart – enough room for them grow before moving to more permanent locations.
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- And finally, Domi gives everything a good, thorough drink. Until established, these boxwoods will need at least weekly watering. It is wonderful to be growing these gorgeous specimens right here at my farm.
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