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A Dream Come True

May 26th, 2011

I’ve always loved boxwood hedges and have always dreamed of having one in my garden someday. I never knew quite where I would put it and the cost has always kept me from doing it, until now.

Yesterday afternoon the UPS man delivered seven ‘Wintergreen’ boxwoods and my dream of having a boxwood hedge will be a reality. I have two places I’m considering putting it. If I put it around my my Montmorency cherry I’ll have enough plants. I’m also considering placing in front that area that had the cover crop on it. This will become a large asparagus bed and I think a low box hedge would look really great with the asparagus ferns behind it.

‘Wintergreen’ boxwood (also known as Korean boxwood) is supposed to keep it’s green color better throughout the winter, which is a bonus here with our cold winters. It’s a more compact form for boxwood and can grow 3-4 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide. It’s a slow growing plant, only growing 4-8 inches per year.

I can’t wait to get these planted. It will take years for them to mature into a nice hedge, but at least I’m finally getting my dream of a boxwood hedge in the garden.

What’s a garden dream you’ve always had?

18 Comments to “A Dream Come True”
  1. Roscoe on May 26, 2011 at 7:17 am

    Where’d you order the plants from? Those are nice buxus for mail-order.

    Reply to Roscoe's comment

    • Susy on May 26, 2011 at 7:23 am

      I got them from Wayside Gardens, I had a gift certificate to spend.

      Reply to Susy's comment

  2. Jenn @ Frugal Upstate on May 26, 2011 at 8:17 am

    So, they grow to 3-4 feet, but can you keep them trimmed low to like a 1foot hedge around something? And how much of a pain would it be to dig them out if you need to later? Just wondering-hubs is big on the gardens looking “neat” and I wondered if a hedge would work around the edge of one. . .

    Reply to Jenn @ Frugal Upstate's comment

    • Susy on May 26, 2011 at 8:50 am

      You can keep them pruned lower, just make sure you buy a smaller version of box like this one for a low hedge. It’s actually a very traditional way to edge a formal garden. I’m guessing since they’re smaller shrubs digging them out wouldn’t be tough of a task. Boxwood hedge edging does a wonderful job at creating a neat edge for gardens, this is one of the reasons I’m considering edging my asparagus bed area in it since it’s in the front lawn. See this image for low box hedges and how they neaten up the beds.

      Potager Inspiration

      Reply to Susy's comment

  3. Fawn on May 26, 2011 at 8:18 am

    Susy,

    Since following your blog I’ve noticed you mail order many things for the garden? Why is that? Is the quality at your local Home Depot/ Lowes/ gardening supply store bad? I typically try to buy at a local nursery who gets a lot of their supply locally which reduces their carbon footprint and I love supporting local businesses.

    Just curious if it was a quality issue or selection issue or something all together different than that!

    Reply to Fawn's comment

    • Susy on May 26, 2011 at 8:36 am

      I do like to purchase from small independent nurseries when I can, they’re more expensive but I hate buying plants at big box hardware stores (ours however don’t really offer locally grown plants much, they all pretty much buy from the same few suppliers). I actually prefer to take cutting and grow my own plants from starts – but sometimes that takes too long and sometimes I’m not able to do it.

      I purchase mail order plants at times because I have difficulty finding some of the things I want from my local nurseries. I haven’t seen washington hawthorne trees at any local nurseries I’ve visited and I needed 225 of them for my hedge so I had to mail order them. These boxwoods plants were purchased via mail order instead of my local nursery because I had a gift certificate.

      I will often purchase gardening supplies via mail order if I can’t find a Made in USA item at my local store. I try to shop small business when I can (being a small business owner myself) but I also try to focus on buying quality Made in USA or fair trade items. I find most products at my local hardware store to be of lower quality and made in China or other places that use cheap labor and supplies. I prefer to spend more to buy American made so that I can get an item that will last my lifetime. If possible I like to buy handmade in the USA – but that can be really difficult to find at times.

      I also don’t always purchase stuff mail order, I often will purchase locally but I add links in my posts to Amazon so that people can see which specific product I’m talking about.

      Reply to Susy's comment

      • Daedre Craig on May 26, 2011 at 9:02 am

        I’m in the greenhouse industry and I know that at least in Michigan, many of our big-box stores do get their garden center plants from Michigan greenhouses, so it’s actually quite local. I’ve visited quite a few of the greenhouses that supply Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s. These greenhouse operations are both big and small. Many of them work through cooperatives to combine their individual products to fill larger big-box orders.

        That said, most of these greenhouses grow-to-order. You’re selection at the big-box store is determined by the store, not the grower, so that’s why they don’t have very unique offerings (but they’re still fairly local).

        to Daedre Craig's comment

  4. Daedre Craig on May 26, 2011 at 8:56 am

    I would love to have a greenhouse (plus free heating, cooling, pest control, and electricity for that greenhouse). A girl can dream…

    Reply to Daedre Craig's comment

  5. Dave on May 26, 2011 at 9:23 am

    Lining that asparagus bed sounds like a really neat idea. Boxwoods root well so now that you have some stock plants you could increase what you have quite a bit!

    Reply to Dave's comment

  6. Michelle @ Give a Girl a Fig on May 26, 2011 at 10:29 am

    My dream has been lots of hydrangeas…and last week I finally bought TWO for the shade border we’re creating in the backyard. Can’t wait to get them in…but, sod first! And apparently, we’re installing the sod this weekend! I didn’t know that…my husband just informed me!

    I also dream of having a greenhouse…and I believe that I will someday when we have a bit of acreage.

    Reply to Michelle @ Give a Girl a Fig's comment

  7. MAYBELLINE on May 26, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    No weeds.
    It’s a dream; but it’s my dream.

    Reply to MAYBELLINE's comment

    • Marcia on May 26, 2011 at 4:57 pm

      Hahahaha…we all have that dream. It`s a collective unatainable dream

      Reply to Marcia's comment

  8. Marcia on May 26, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    I`ve always dreamed of a garden with a wicked water feature such as a pond the size of a small lake, a waterfall or a fountain I could almost swim in.

    Reply to Marcia's comment

  9. Nicola on May 26, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    My dream is to have a garden! We are renting at the moment and other considerations (a warm house, walking distance) mean that, for now, I am limited to a few plants in pots. I love reading blogs such as yours to get my garden fix in the meantime :) When I do finally get my hands on some land my first investment would be a glasshouse, summer is too short here!

    Reply to Nicola's comment

  10. donna rae on May 26, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    This will sound silly, but I am a Virginia-born girl-of-the-south: I’ve been wanting a bottle tree for years now! We have lots of blue and green, clear and amber bottles saved up and FINALLY this year I’m getting it. My sweet husband is going to put it up for me. You can check some out on Felder Rushing’s website.

    Reply to donna rae's comment

  11. alison@thisbloominglife on May 26, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    These are great little hedgers – now you have some stock you will be up and running as they are incredibly easy to get cuttings from. I have previously created 100s of metres of hedges from a base of 10. Is all you need is patience! Overplanting is one way to overcome this.

    Here in Australia, I do almost all my plant shopping on line. I find that the garden centres stock plants when they are in flower meaning it is not always a good time for planting. In addition, you can get more variety, and smaller plants (cheaper and therefore more money for more plants…..)

    Reply to alison@thisbloominglife's comment

  12. Sheila on May 26, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    I just put boxwood hedges around my flower beds too!

    Reply to Sheila's comment

  13. Tammey on May 26, 2011 at 11:44 pm

    My dream come true is to finally have a pretty garden with walkways and raised beds..To me a garden is a work of art. I love every minute of it!

    Reply to Tammey's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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