Green Ice Boxwood
Buxus hybrid 'Krazgreen' (PP# 10,773)
Green Ice Boxwood
Buxus hybrid 'Krazgreen' (PP# 10,773)
How are the heights measured?
All tree, and nothin' but the tree! We measure from the top of the soil to the top of the tree; the height of the container or the root system is never included in our measurements.
What is a gallon container?
Nursery containers come in a variety of different sizes, and old-school nursery slang has stuck. While the industry-standard terminology is to call the sizes "Gallon Containers", that doesn't exactly translate to the traditional liquid "gallon" size we think of. You'll find we carry young 1-gallons, up to more mature 7-gallons ranging anywhere from 6 inches to 6ft.
How does the delivery process work?
All of our orders ship via FedEx Ground! Once your order is placed online, our magic elves get right to work picking, staging, boxing and shipping your trees. Orders typically ship out within 2 business days. You will receive email notifications along the way on the progress of your order, as well as tracking information to track your plants all the way to their new home!
Why are some states excluded from shipping?
The short & sweet answer is: "United States Department of Agriculture Restrictions." Every state has their own unique USDA restrictions on which plants they allow to come into their state. While we wish we could serve everyone, it's for the safety of native species and helps prevent the spread of invasive disease & pests. We've gotta protect good ole' Mother Nature, after all.
About Me
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The Green Ice® Boxwood is a vigorous hybrid boxwood that is remarkable for keeping its rich green color throughout even the coldest winter. It does not burn or brown, but instead stays green and healthy even in zone 4. No more burned leaves to trim away every spring, and then wait for new growth. As soon as the snow goes, there it is, green and handsome as ever. This evergreen shrub grows into a mounding plant, up to 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide, but it is easily trimmed to keep it smaller, and to develop perfect hedges, rounded shapes, or other green elements to decorate your garden. Use hedges to surround beds and terraces – they can easily be kept just 12 inches tall. Plant it is pots and planters alone or with flowering plants, to make your patio and terrace beautiful.
- Dense, vigorous mounding growth to 3 feet tall
- Perfect green color with no burning even in zone 4
- Ideal for hedges, balls, and left natural too
- Lacks the smell of common boxwood
- Perfect in planters, pots and urns
Grow the Green Ice® Boxwood almost anywhere, from full sun to light full shade. It will grow in almost any garden soil, and benefits from regular watering and fertilizing, especially if you trim it frequently. This variety lacks the smell of boxwood that some people find unpleasant, and it is generally free of the pests and diseases seen in other varieties. Its vigorous growth means that in just a few short years you will have lovely mature plants and features in your garden, giving you the perfect classic look you want, even if you garden in cold areas, and you have had problems with boxwood in the past.
- Plant Hardiness Zones 4-9
- Mature Width 2-3
- Mature Height 2-4
Boxwoods are wonderful plants for every garden. These mounds of small leaves make great backgrounds for flowering shrubs, perfect miniature hedges, specimens to dot around randomly or arrange in patterns, and of course they are perfect for placing in planters and pots for that formal look around your home. The problem is that many are not especially hardy, so in colder areas like zones 4 and 5 the choices are very limited, and almost all of them will suffer some winter foliage loss, or burning, meaning that in spring they need restorative trimming, and time to re-sprout, before they look great again.
At least, that was true until the Green Ice® Boxwood came along. This hybrid boxwood is set to become the ‘go-to’ variety for all gardeners in cold areas, because it holds its lovely olive-green leaf color perfectly through the coldest weather, and it comes out in spring looking just as good as it did in fall.
Growing Green Ice® Boxwoods
The Green Ice® Boxwood grows vigorously and rapidly to a height of between 2 and 4 feet tall, forming a dense mound of many leafy branches. A mature plant will be about 3 feet wide, and untrimmed plants are usually a little taller than they are wide. The whole plant is covered in tiny olive-green leaves, which are oval and about three-quarters of an inch long. Plants that are regularly trimmed will have significantly smaller leaves. The leaves are glossy and smooth, with smooth edges and a very neat appearance.
The new leaves in spring are paler-green, with an attractive bluish tone to them, which disappears as the leaves mature to a rich green. The great feature of this plant is the permanence of the green color, throughout very cold weather down into zone 4. As well, some people find boxwood gives off a disagreeable smell, which is completely absent from this plant, so if you find boxwood ‘smelly’, then choose Green Ice.
Planting and Initial Care
The Green Ice® Boxwood is easy to grow in almost any part of the garden, from full sun to light full shade. The growth will be thinner in very shaded areas, and you should give more attention to water and fertilizer if it is growing beneath large trees and shrubs. It will grow in almost any garden soil, preferring moist, well-drained, sandy soil with plenty of organic material added. This boxwood is usually free of the pests and diseases that can bother other boxwood varieties. If grown in raised pots or urns in zones 4 and 5, it is best to remove the plants in late fall and bury the roots in the garden, to protect them from cold. Replace them in the urns in early spring.
Uses on Your Property
You can use the Green Ice® Boxwood virtually everywhere in your garden. The traditional use for boxwood is for low hedges to surround beds or terraces, and this one is ideal. Its exceptionally vigorous growth means it responds well to trimming, becoming very, very dense, with a solid surface you will love to see. For a hedge, place your bushes in a row, allowing 12 to 15 inches between each plant.
The Green Ice® Boxwood can also be trimmed into round balls and low pyramids, in the same way as suggested to create a hedge. These formal features look perfect at the corners of lawns, or in pairs along a pathway, or to mark an entrance. These globes can also be planted in attractive planter boxes, pots or urns, and used on either side of a doorway, on a patio, or in other locations. In planters it can be grown alone for a more modern look or surrounded by trailing and flowering plants for more color and variety.
Boxwood is also used in Japanese gardens, where groupings of plants are trimmed into informal cloud-like patterns, called Niwaki. You can do this to give your Asian-inspired planting greater authenticity. In less formal gardens, let your Green Ice® Boxwoods grow naturally, without trimming, into wonderful irregular mounds of green among your other plants.
Care and Maintenance
Trim lightly as they grow, keeping the top a little narrower than the bottom, so that your hedge remains green right to the ground. You can easily maintain a hedge that is less than 12 inches tall and just a few inches wide, or you can quickly grow it larger to as much as 3 feet tall. Once your hedge is mature, trim lightly in spring, before the new growth appears, and then again in early summer once the new growth has matured to its final color. A second trimming may be needed in late summer, depending on the location, soil fertility, watering and temperatures.
History and Origins of the Green Ice® Boxwood
The Green Ice® Boxwood was discovered as a chance seedling by Marlene Krasinsky and Robert E.Bayusik, in 1964 in the town of Portage, Pennsylvania. Its exact parentage is unknown, but its appearance suggests it is a hybrid between the English Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens ‘Suffruticosa’) and the Korean Boxwood (Buxus sinica var. insularis). Its unusually vigorous growth also suggests it is a hybrid plant.
Noticing its properties, they tested this plant for years, sending plants to be grown in different regions, to find out its hardiness. It passed with flying colors, and it is highly-recommended for colder areas, where winter burning is a problem, but also in warmer places, for its toughness and vigor. The plant was trademarked as Green Ice, and patented, for its unique combination of properties, in 1999. Because a plant cannot have a trademark name as a cultivar name, ‘Krazgreen’ is the usual cultivar name given to this plant.
Boxwood is such a useful plant in the garden, and the Green Ice® Boxwood is a top choice. We always ship large numbers of boxwood across the country, so our stocks of this exceptional variety will not be with us long. Order now, and never look at burned boxwoods again – but do it soon, or they will be gone.