I have some out of control boxwoods in the front yard of the place I rent. The haven’t been trimmed in the last 15 years and are now approximately 8 feet in diameter and approximately 4 1/2 feet tall.
Only the outer areas are producing leaves as sunlight is blocked from penetrating into the plant. Part the branches and there is nothing but bare branches.
The landlord wants to keep the plants and yard work is my job since my rent is super cheap. Anyone know the best/easiest way of rehabbing the yard monsters?
Any help/advice is appreciated.
I was just outside, picking little green caterpillars off of my Joe Pye weed. They’re very tiny now, but in just a few days they will be much bigger. Lots of damage, even though they’re small. No gypsy moth caterpillars yet, but we should be seeing them soon, too.
Eutrochium purpureum, commonly known as purple Joe-Pye weed,[3] kidney-root,[4] sweetscented joe pye weed,[5] sweet Joe-Pye weed, gravel root, or trumpet weed is an herbaceous perennial plant in the sunflower family. It is native to eastern and central North America, from Ontario east to New Hampshire and south as far as Florida, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.[6]
Eutrochium purpureum is a clump-forming herb that grows to 1.5–2.4 meters (4.9–7.9 ft) tall and about 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) wide. Plants are found in full sun to part shade in mesic to wet soils. Stems are upright, thick, round, and purple, with whorls of leaves at each node. As the plant begins to bloom the stems often bend downward under the weight of the flowers. The leaves grow to 30 cm (12 in) long and have a somewhat wrinkled texture. The purplish flowers are produced in large loose, convex shaped compound corymbiform arrays. Plants bloom mid to late summer and attract much activity from insects that feed on the nectar produced by the flowers. This species hybridizes readily with other species of Eutrochium and where this species and those species overlap in distribution the resulting plants can be difficult to resolve to a specific taxon.[7] There are two varieties that differ in the pubescence of the stems and foliage, but many more have been proposed in the past, thought most authorities now accept that this is a variable species and population variations integrate.
Eutrochium purpureum is sometimes cultivated and has escaped from cultivation in parts of New Zealand.[8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrochium_purpureum
It’s one of my favourite plants.
We have a giant yew with the same problem, we have decided just to hack it up and burn it. Replace with younger yew and keep it trimmed. I you have lots of thick old branches inside your boxwood it is probably not salvageable either, unless someone else here has more experience. Maybe the easiest to please your landlord is to yank it and put in a younger boxwood.
The ideal/best time to trim shrubs and or trees is when they are dormant (ie.: early spring, or late fall).
If that's not practical, you trim when you can, and the weather is agreeable.
When you do trim, remove no more than 1/3 the foliage at any one time, or you will 'shock' the plant.
It sounds counter-intuitive for taming 'wilding plants', but you might consider topping off the top of the plant to open it up to sunshine,
and then applying a foliar fertilizer, like Miracle Grow, to stimulate interior growth to fill out the plant .
It is best to tame the plants in graduated steps, rather than to just do a 'hatchet job', or a "one-and-done'.