Question about boxwood shrub

Something happened to one of my boxwood shrubs. It looks as if someone fell into it backside first, breaking many of the branches and leaving a large, rounded section gone (picture a boxwood trimmed into about a 20-inch square with a concave area the size of a large beach ball on one side). I live right on the main street and the boxwood is one of several lining the front walk, so some drunken idiot falling into it is not out of the realm of possibility.

At any rate, will this fill in at all as time goes by? Or will this particular shrub always have a big area missing? In other words, can I prune this and hope to have it regain some of its nice, square shape, or is my only choice to remove and replace it. Since it's one of many, I sure hate to yank it out and replace it if I can avoid it, since it will leave an obvious gap for a long time before a new one fills in.

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Jo Ann

Reply to
Jo Ann
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I have had my boxwoods fill in gaps and here is how I did it. When I did my regular trimming I 'trimmed' within the hole so that the replacement branches in there not only grew but branched. It took a few years, but it looks like the hole was never there now. Tomes

Reply to
Tomes

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it hasn't broken dormancy yet you can dig it up and turn it around so that the "bad" side is not visible from the front.

Reply to
told2b

Thank you both for the advice! Unfortunately, it has already broken dormancy. Also, it's a very well established shrub in a boxwood hedge, and I'm not sure if I could dig it up without damaging the adjacent ones. For now, I'll be trying the trimming and see if I can encourage it to fill in. Turning it around will be my ace in the hole before I resort to replacing it down the road.

Thanks again! Jo Ann

Reply to
Jo Ann

Jo Ann wrote in news:1176818730.546947.93310 @y5g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:

You might want to embed a steel spike fence in the bushes so the next time this happens you can follow the trail of blood to the offender and get them to pay for the damage. :)

Reply to
FragileWarrior

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