Interesting / useful article from today's Gardening supplement in The Telegraph:
From diseases to caterpillars: is it time to give up on box?
More dire warnings have recently surfaced about yet another devastating problem for lovers of box (Buxus sempervirens and its most commonly used compact forms B. sempervirens 'Suffruticosa’ and B. microphylla). The latest crisis is caused by caterpillars of a newly imported moth.
Is it time to give up on this evergreen hedging plant, the centuries-old sine qua non of every smart garden?
Why is box so popular?
Evergreen with neat and glossy leaves, box is tolerant of a variety of soil types and will grow in both full sun or quite deep shade (although woe betide anyone who expects symmetrical hedges in a tiny garden that has extremes of both). Ideal for topiary, box grows slowly and needs only 1½ cuts per year from which it comes back neat and smiling.
Article continues here............
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Yup I read that in the Mail today. We are being attacked from all angles! Unfortunately for us the world is becoming a smaller place and it will get worse I fear.
There are pests & diseases of most hedging plants to varying degrees but Box has perhaps been singled out the most, in my view, unjustly.
Agreed, Gavin.
Replace it with yew, and the Daily Mail will be telling you about Phytopthora. Plant privet, and the Mail will scare you with horror stories of honey fungus. The only solution is to ban foreign plants: where are UKIP when you need them!
Prune at the right time, feed and water well, and if there's a local problem with one particular plant, don't plant it.
I think The Telegraph article needs to be read. It provides insight, solutions and alternatives.
I don't think box will disappear but not everyone who plants it will have success.
I put in a box hedge about 2 years ago. It's been slow to establish - mainly due to the proximity of a concrete footing that extends under the plant roots a little. I have 8 box balls. One of these balls became infected (or was infected when I planted it) yet today there are no signs of blight.
I have good airflow, which I think helps a great deal.
One suggestion is to trim Box into a joined up pyramid to get more airflow through thus reducing condusive conditions.
I hope not ... but I am no longer using box in any of my planting schemes, so it would seem to me the future is pretty bleak. Thousands of £'s worth of box in three of the gardens I look after are now being professionally sprayed twice a year having been ravaged by the worst form of blight, Cylindrocladium buxicola a few years ago.
Mussel scale too has become a significant problem, and to a lesser degree, spider mite, and these pests are also now being treated professionally. I don't even want to think about this wretched caterpillar!
I hate having to use chemicals so it's no more box for me for the foreseeable future.