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HOW TO PRUNE A MEATBALL BOXWOOD

July 27, 2015

My affinity for meatball boxwoods is no secret. In my very informal garden, they are one of the few nods I give to formality and I like the structure they provide.
I usually prune boxwoods toward the end of June, but this year was a little behind weather-wise and then I left for awhile so I didn’t get to them until this weekend. That’s probably a tad on the late side, but I think they’ll be OK. You want to prune them after the big flush of new growth, but not so late that the growth that is spurred by pruning doesn’t have adequate time to harden off before winter.
I’m no master pruner, but my meatball technique gets better with practice. When I first started pruning boxwood, I would use a hand pruners and cut back to a leaf node, which is how you are supposed to do every other kind of pruning. That never led to a very nice look, though, so I switched to hedge shears, which look like giant scissors. Those are fine, but they lack a certainly ability to make detailed cuts. A couple years ago I switched to sheep shears. These are a hand killer, but give you so much more control over your cuts.
I now have four meatball boxwoods in the garden, the largest of which is probably 10 years old now. Here’s what it looked like before pruning.
How to prune a meatball boxwood
When you prune shrubs, you’re never supposed to go in at the bottom, shading the bottom branches, but I do it anyway. Boxwood are resilient and I so prefer a globe shape over a straight-sided dome. I do it entirely by eyeballing it; I’m not sure if there are other, more technical, ways to prune meatballs. I start but trimming a few inches in each hemisphere, all the way around the shrub, sort of dividing it into eighths. Then I add in another “band” of pruning horizontally along the top quarter. After that, I just fill in the gaps. I also use a hand pruner to cut out any dead wood (like in that bottom righthand corner).
There’s a lot of standing back and looking at it from afar and from different angles and going back and snipping a little more. I don’t take off a lot of material because I’m happy with the size of this shrub. I would guess I end up taking off about half of the new growth, and a little more in some areas (for instance, you can see the lighter green area in the front that for some reason grew more than other areas).
How to prune a meatball boxwood

And here’s the finished meatball. It’s not super tight, like some boxwoods at formal gardens, but it’s too my liking. AfterI took this picture, I actually went back and took off a little more on that upper left hand corner because it felt like it was standing a little proud to me.

How to prune a meatball boxwood

And here’s a little before and after gif to easily show the difference.

How to prune a meatball boxwood

What do you think about meatball plants? I know some people abhor them. I just can’t help myself … little round balls of plants make me happy.

boxwood pruning boxwood
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
8 Comments

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Comments

  1. Lisa Greenbow says: July 27, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    I like your meatballs because they aren't cut too close. The ones that look like the factory spit them out are not to my liking.

    Reply
  2. Erin Schanen says: July 27, 2015 at 4:03 pm

    Yes, I like my plant meatballs like I like my meat meatballs … a little loose, not all packed together. 🙂 (Also I do make a good edible meatball, too, or at least that's what Mr. Much More Patient says.)

    Reply
  3. Heather - New House New Home says: July 28, 2015 at 11:48 am

    No meatballs around here. But we do have a small boxwood hedge that gets pruned into a rectangular shape. I prefer a rounded shape, but hubby likes the formal rectangle. And I must admit that it suits the spot bordering the patio better.

    Reply
  4. Ms. Wis./Each Little World says: July 28, 2015 at 12:33 pm

    I have had sheep shelters for years and love them. Nice tutorial.

    Reply
  5. karen@somewhatquirky says: July 29, 2015 at 3:37 am

    I have seven meatball boxwoods side by side on my front walkway. I trim them pretty much like you do, and don't worry about the bottom being shaded. The only problem I have with them is when they get burned by the snow on the lawn side of the walkway. I think I'm going to start covering them with burlap over the snow season. It isn't fun trimming them by hand but I haven't found any power equipment that works for this. I leave them as full as I can without them touching. I don't like anything trimmed to tight.

    Reply
  6. White says: January 28, 2019 at 10:22 am

    Ive been thinking about trying these out this April and now I think I’ve decided to give it a go!

    Reply
  7. Candy says: December 28, 2019 at 11:40 pm

    Love the meatballs — pretty impressive free hand pruning. Mine never come out as good. It’s definitely a skill.

    Reply
  8. Garry says: May 26, 2022 at 10:51 am

    I love meatball boxwoods as well, but didn’t know they were called that. Duh!!! Love your pruning tips. I have 10 boxwoods and will definitely use this technique, and get me some sheep shears.

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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