![]() If you want a conical form, for pots by the door, low accents, or hedges up to 3 feet tall, then look no further than the Patti O Box™ Japanese Holly, a variety found by the holly expert Michael Farrow, and correctly called ‘FarrowSK6’. But as well as upright plants there are several forms – we especially love the one called ‘Convexa’ – it makes dense, rounded bushes and is perfect for clipping into hedges or balls. In true boxwood they are in opposite pairs, but in holly they alternate along the stem.) One of the most well-known is the Sky Pencil Holly, which is one of the most popular evergreens for slender, upright accent plants or slim hedges. ( If you really want to impress, look at the leaves on the stems. In the wild it usually forms a small tree, and the ends of the leaves have small notches, but garden plants are much smaller, and the leaves are rounded, looking exactly like boxwood. This bush, called Ilex crenata by the experts, comes not just from Japan, but also from China, Korea and eastern Russia. In hot southern states, and in wet soils, there are new varieties of an American bush, the Inkberry, Ilex glabra, that are perfect for that boxwood look, but that thrive instead of struggle. At Het Loo Palace they used a compact form of the Japanese Holly, Ilex crenata. ![]() There are two types of holly that are being used to replace boxwood, depending on your location and soil conditions. Holly? That’s right, but not the Christmas card holly we all love, with its bright red berries and spiny leaves. Back in 2013 they replaced all that boxwood, badly damaged by disease, with another shrub that looks virtually identical, but grows without any problems. Het Loo Palace is a famous restored 17 th century garden with miles ( literally) of ornate clipped boxwood hedges in the Dutch and French style. Large gardens are also replacing their boxwood with something else. ![]() When you do change to these new plants, you will be in good company. I’d like to introduce you to two plants that are perfect – depending on your soil and climate – as substitutes that will even fool that expert gardener who lives down the street ( every neighborhood has one). Ready to give up? Well don’t – or rather, go ahead and give up on boxwood, but don’t give up on evergreen shrubs with tiny, glossy green leaves, that clip well into balls, cones, and neat hedges. More recently, here and back in Europe, new pests and diseases have begun to attack these plants, so growing them can often be a challenge. From the intense winter cold in the north, to the long humid and hot summers of the south, both climate and soil presented challenges to boxwoods that European plant had never encountered before. When the early settlers arrived with their precious baby plants, ready to re-create their European gardens in the New World, they hadn’t counted on the incredible range of climates in their new homeland. Start growing it yourself and even in areas where it often grows well, problems start to develop. Most people recognize it straight away, and those clipped hedges are a symbol of the organize, formal look for gardens. Boxwood is definitely one of the most iconic garden plants there is.
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