Easy to grow and a true evergreen shrub, Sprinter Boxwood is a superstar of the boxwood family! This gorgeous boxwood (Buxus microphylla) features a stunning shade of green for a year-round show in the garden. Sprinter Boxwood is a must-have for any gardener looking for a perfect evergreen shrub!
What Is A Boxwood Shrub?
Boxwoods are one of the most popular shrubs for the home garden and for good reason! Gardeners love their green foliage that provide year-round color, interest, and structure. Boxwoods can take a dreary winter landscape and turn it into something beautiful and interesting- just imagine the elegant glossy green foliage surrounded by snow! Found in formal gardens, cottage gardens, planters, and more, boxwoods hold a place in nearly every garden design style.
The natural size, shape, growth rate and hardiness vary between the many varieties of boxwood shrubs. They range in shape including rounded, upright, pyramidal or spreading, with heights ranging from 1-20 feet tall and widths ranging from 2-8 feet wide. This beautiful evergreen shrub is hardy in zones 5-9 (and some varieties, down to zone 4).
Why You’ll Love Sprinter Boxwood
Sprinter Boxwood is considered one of the best Proven Winners shrubs for its ease of growing, tolerance of different growing conditions, flexibility with sunlight and shade exposure, excellent cold hardiness, deer resistance, year-round garden interest, minimal care, and fast growth! Unlike other varieties of boxwood that take years to put on substantial growth, Sprinter Boxwood is considered to be the fastest growing boxwood variety. It can grow to 24-48 inches tall and wide.
This is a newer and improved version of the popular ‘Winter Gem’ variety. Its fast growth and upright habit make it a fantastic option for creating a boxwood hedge. It is also much less susceptible to the infamous ‘boxwood blight’. While some boxwood varieties are more likely to “golden/bronze” during the winter months, Sprinter Boxwood is a true evergreen shrub, keeping its glossy green foliage looking great all winter long!
Sprinter Boxwoods make a beautiful evergreen shade plant. Tolerant of full shade or full sun, its light requirement flexibility makes Sprinter Boxwood landscaping ideas easy to incorporate into your home garden. Whether you are looking for evergreen winter planter ideas, planting an evergreen border, or simply planting some boxwoods in front of the house, Sprinter Boxwood is a must-have for your garden.
Boxwood Garden Ideas
If you’re looking for boxwood landscaping ideas for your own garden, the ideas are endless! As I mentioned previously, boxwoods fit into many different gardening styles. From a formal garden, to an informal garden, and whimsical gardens in between, this beautiful shrub always fits in! There’s something just so classy about boxwoods too. Here are a few boxwood design ideas:
Sprinter Boxwood Hedge
A perfect candidate for a boxwood hedge! Planting an evergreen hedge is a lovely way to add year-round interest, structure, and a touch of formality to your garden. Boxwoods are very easy to shear into a hedge, keeping it contained to your ideal height.
Boxwood Planters
Boxwood planters make the most stunning and elegant garden accent to your garden. Place boxwood planters on your front porch, lining your driveway, on either side of your garage, or throughout your backyard garden for a formal and gorgeous landscape design.
Boxwood Parterre
One of my favorite garden design elements is a boxwood parterre. When our large tree in the center of our front yard had to be taken out, and there was nothing but grass surrounding the mound of soil, I knew I had to take advantage of the clean slate and create a boxwood parterre. I love the formal garden design of boxwoods forming their own contained space to showcase gorgeous flowers or flowering shrubs. One of the best decisions I made in our garden! Plus, you wouldn’t know that something so elegant requires such little care!
Formal Boxwood Garden
Incorporating boxwood hedges, boxwood parterres, and formal planters are great ways to incorporate a formal garden with boxwoods.
Informal Boxwood Garden
Using boxwoods sparingly throughout an informal or cottage garden provides structure amongst the more commonly used whimsical, loose, wispy, free-forming flowers and plants used in an informal garden.
In my own version of a “cottage garden” where I have numerous English roses, lavender, calamint, baptisia, catmint, and salvia, the Sprinter Boxwood adds some great structure between the free-flowing plants, plus, in the winter when everything else looks bare, the boxwoods pop with their own little green glossy show for a new garden design altogether!
Additional Boxwood ideas
- Boxwood clippings can be used as the most simple and elegant touch to a holiday wrapped gift
- Boxwood wreaths look gorgeous during the holiday season
- Boxwood clippings can be tied onto cloth napkins to make a beautiful, festive place setting
- Boxwood clippings make the most beautiful foliage in a floral arrangement
- A small boxwood parterre can also be a beautiful containment for a vegetable garden!
- Fill a boxwood parterre with pollinator-friendly plants for a mini butterfly garden (and attract honeybees and hummingbirds too!)
- Or fill a boxwood parterre with my “favorite plant for the neglectful gardener” for an EASY-care and STUNNING garden design!
Boxwood Companion Plants
- Boxwoods look great with so many different colors in the garden, but the green glossy foliage of Sprinter Boxwood makes any white flower or shrub really stand out in the garden. Combine boxwood with white roses, white hydrangeas, white peonies, or white tulips for a classic white garden design element
- Iceberg Roses (fantastic white roses)
- Seafoam Roses (hedge-forming, low-growing white roses)
- Bolero Roses (white roses with the most incredible scent)
- Incrediball Hydrangeas (the improved version of the classic white Annabelle Hydrangea)
- Tardiva Hydrangeas (beautiful white hydrangea with airy white florets- tree form looks great)
- Limelight Hydrangeas (a classic white, panicle shaped hydrangea bloom- tree form looks great)
- Bobo Hydrangeas (large white blooms, on a more compact hydrangea shrub)
- Endless Summer Hydrangeas or Nantucket Blue Hydrangeas (light blue florets, on puff ball clouds of blooms. *Soil amendments may be needed to achieve the blue color!)
- Russian Sage (wispy lilac blooms that bloom all summer long into fall, and attract the best pollinators!)
- Tulips of all colors look amazing in a parterre
- Mount Tacoma Tulips (white tulips)
- Avant Garde Tulips (soft buttery yellow tulips)
- Candy Prince Tulips (formal, single soft-lilac tulips)
- Angelique Tulips (double, soft-pink tulips)
- Globemaster or Gladiator Alliums (giant, lollipop-like, gorgeous purple flowers)
- Pink English Roses (I have too many favorite varieties, so here is a list of favorites!)
Planting Sprinter Boxwood Shrubs
Where To Plant
- Plant in moist, well-drained soil (boxwoods donāt tolerate standing water or soggy soil)
- While Sprinter Boxwood is more flexible in planting locations than other boxwood varieties, aim for planting in an area that provides protection from harsh winter wind and extreme summer sunlight which can put boxwoods at greater risk of foliage bronzing
- While Sprinter Boxwood is more flexible in sunlight requirement, an ideal location will receive at least 4-6 hours of direct sunlight, with protection from the scorching afternoon summer sun
When To Plant
- Sprinter Boxwood can be planted year-round, as long as the ground is not frozen
- Fall and Early Spring are generally the preferred planting times (to avoid the extreme heat of summer as the plant gets established)
How To Plant
- Dig a hole twice as wide and slightly deeper than the root ball
- Loosen soil around the hole
- Remove the plant from the garden nursery container
- Gently tease some of the roots at the bottom and sides of the boxwood
- Place the boxwood in the hole with the crown slightly above soil level
- Backfill the hole with soil
- Mound up soil to the base to keep water from pooling.
- Water the soil around the shrub
Sprinter Boxwood Care
Watering
- During the first planting year, keep soil evenly moist but not soggy
- During the second year, continue to water regularly if rainfall isnāt sufficient
- Water more frequently during extreme heat
- Water more frequently if growing boxwood in planters/pots/containers
- Water around the base of the shrub, not directly on the foliage
Mulching and Fertilizing
- Fertilize with a controlled-release, all-purpose fertilizer in the spring to promote foliage growth
- Avoid over-fertilizing as their shallow root systems are susceptible to root damage
- Add 1-2 inches of mulch around the base of the plant to help retain moisture, keep the roots cool, and keep nearby weeds at bay
Pruning
- Pruning isn’t needed, but boxwoods make a fantastic formal hedge or topiary if shaped and sheared during the summer months
Boxwood Blight? Yikes!
Boxwood blight is a fungal disease that effects the leaves and branches of boxwood plants. Boxwood blight weakens the plant, turns the shrub brown, and makes the boxwood more susceptible to diseases that could kill the boxwood. Luckily, Sprinter Boxwood is one of the best disease-resistant boxwood varieties, and is one of the least likely to catch the blight. Yay!
Sprinter Boxwood Characteristics
- Plant type:Ā Shrub
- Shrub type: Evergreen
- Hardiness:Ā Cold hardy to zone 5
- Height:Ā 24 – 48 Inches tall
- Width: 24 – 48 Inches wide
- Height Category: MediumĀ
- Foliage: Green and glossy
- Light preference:Ā Full sun to shade
- Water Preference:Ā Average
- Bloom description:Ā (not significant)
- Habit: Upright
- Maintenance:Ā Easy and minimal
Where To Buy Sprinter Boxwood
- Local garden nurseries
- Local landscaping companies may also have access
- Home Depot online
- Fast Growing Trees
- Proven Winners Direct
The Perfect Garden Shrub
Easy to grow and a true evergreen shrub, Sprinter Boxwood is a must-have for any gardener looking for a stunning boxwood for their garden!
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