Buxus ‘Newgen Freedom’ 18-21"

Latin Name: Buxus NewGen Freedom® 

Common Name: NewGen Freedom Boxwood

Zones: 5-8

Height & Spread: 4-5 feet tall, spreading 4-5 feet wide (Proven Winners lists 3.5 feet at maturity, and some sources give larger sizes with age)

Descriptive Features: A vigorous, disease-resistant evergreen boxwood from Saunders Brothers Nursery’s NewGen series, selected through years of blight-resistance trials and a strong replacement for ‘Wintergreen’, ‘Winter Gem’, ‘Green Beauty’, and ‘Jim Stauffer’. Forms a rounded, slightly egg-shaped, somewhat upright, dense shrub of glossy, medium green foliage with a tighter, more uniform habit than those older varieties. Shows high tolerance to boxwood blight and resistance to boxwood leafminer, two of the biggest threats to traditional boxwoods. Fast-growing for a boxwood, adding about 3-5 inches a year, so it fills in quickly, but annual pruning in late winter to early spring is needed to keep it tight, because unpruned plants tend to open up in the center. Keeps good winter color. Adaptable to full sun, part shade, or even full shade in average, evenly moist, well-drained soil, and it appreciates a layer of organic mulch. Deer- and rabbit-resistant. An excellent choice for formal and informal hedges, foundation plantings, borders, specimens, mass plantings, containers, and cut greens in full sun to part shade.