What can I plant instead of box?

Box blight and, more recently, box tree caterpillar have made box a demanding plant in much of the UK. Enough gardeners have replanted with alternatives that there is now real experience of what works, and the honest position is that nothing is quite box — but several plants are close, and some are considerably easier.

Step by step

1. Decide the height first, because it narrows the field immediately.Under about 400mm — low parterre edging and small topiary — is where box alternatives are genuinely needed. Above that, yew is the traditional and best answer and has been all along. A great deal of agonising over box substitutes is really a question that yew already answers.
2. Ilex crenata — the closest match in appearance.Japanese holly has small dark evergreen leaves and clips to a dense box-like finish. It is the standard replacement and looks right. Trade-offs: it dislikes very alkaline soil and cold wet ground, it is slower to establish than the alternatives below, and it is not cheap.
3. Euonymus japonicus 'Green Spire' or 'Jean Hugues' — tough and quick.Glossy dark evergreen leaves, dense growth, tolerant of poor soil, dry conditions and coastal exposure. Faster than box and cheaper. It looks slightly glossier and coarser than box up close, which some people mind and most do not.
4. Podocarpus 'Chocolate Box' and similar — narrow-leaved and dense.Bred specifically as a box substitute. Fine-textured, dense, and generally hardy across the UK, though check the variety for your area. Clips well and holds shape.
5. Taxus baccata — yew, for anything of any height.Slower to start than its reputation suggests but not by much on good ground, extremely long lived, tolerant of hard renovation, and clips to the finest finish of any hedging plant. Poisonous to livestock and to some pets, which rules it out in a few situations.
6. Lonicera nitida — cheap and very fast.Small-leaved, dense, and cheap enough to plant a long run for very little. The cost is clipping: it needs cutting three or four times a season to look crisp, and it becomes shabby and open if you fall behind.
7. Pittosporum tenuifolium and Osmanthus — for milder gardens.Both clip well to a fine finish. Pittosporum is not fully hardy in colder inland gardens and can be cut back in a severe winter; Osmanthus is hardier and slower.
8. Consider not replanting a hedge at all.A low hedge of clipped lavender, of rosemary, or a repeated planting of a compact evergreen used as individual plants rather than a continuous line does the same visual job in some settings with far less clipping.
9. Check the practical constraints before ordering.Soil pH, exposure, how cold your garden actually gets, and how many times a year you will realistically clip. Those four answers eliminate most of the list and leave you with one or two.

Tips

• If you are replacing blighted box, remove the old plants and as much of the leaf litter and topsoil beneath them as you reasonably can, and do not replant box in the same soil.
• Ilex crenata struggles on chalk. On alkaline soil the euonymus and yew options are far more reliable.
• Mixing two different substitutes in one formal run looks wrong. Choose one plant for a whole scheme.
• Box tree caterpillar attacks box specifically. None of these alternatives is a host, which is the main practical reason people change.

Common mistakes

• Replanting box into soil where box has just died of blight — Blight spores persist in the soil and on debris, so the replacement is likely to be infected as well.
• Choosing Lonicera nitida without allowing for the clipping — It needs cutting three or four times a season. On a long run that is a substantial commitment, and neglected it looks far worse than box ever did.
• Using Ilex crenata on chalky soil — It prefers neutral to acid conditions and yellows and sulks on chalk. Euonymus or yew are better choices there.

Questions people ask