Japanese Boxwood
Buxus microphylla var. japonica
A fine-textured evergreen for edging, low formal hedges and foundation plantings, highly resistant to boxwood blight and nematodes, and deer and rabbits leave it alone. It does best in part shade with cool, mulched roots; full sun can redden the leaves, and hot sun or harsh winter wind can burn them.
- Mature size
- 6 × 6 ft
- 1.8 × 1.8 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 6a–9b
- USDA
- Sun
- Part sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to moist
Japanese Boxwood at its mature size
A mature Japanese Boxwood grows 6 to 8.5 feet tall and 6 to 15 feet wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension, Clemson Extension.
Through the year
What Japanese Boxwood looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
In leaf · Year-round
Dense rounded mound of small glossy medium green leaves.
Growing Japanese Boxwood
- Grows well in
- The Southeast, the Plains and Mountain West, and California.
- Growth rate
- Slow
- Good for
- Privacy screen, hedge, foundation planting, specimen, shade garden, and deer resistant
- Leaves
- Evergreen
- Native to
- Japan
Spacing for a hedge
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Japanese Boxwood, that’s about 6 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Japanese Boxwood in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other boxwoods
Baby Gem BoxwoodGreen Beauty Boxwood
Green Mountain BoxwoodJapanese BoxwoodAll drawn to the same scale.