365 Urban species. #364: Boxwood

[urbpan]

Boxwood forms the border between two yards, as well as the edge along the sidewalk, here on Parkway Road in Brookline.

365 Urban species #364: Boxwood Buxus sempervirens

In my neighborhood, a densely settled area of apartment buildings and Victorians, there are square-cut hedges between many of the residences and the sidewalk. I hardly ever think of these hedges as living things--or even think of them at all, most of the time. Once or twice a year my neighbors, my wife or myself get the hedge trimmers out to shape the ones in front of our building, to cut the stems that have dared to bolt past the tabletop-flat surface of the collection of shrubs. Only recently did it occur to me that not only do our hedges have an identity, they share it with dozens of other individual plants on our block and on nearby blocks.

Boxwood, or common box, is an evergreeen shrub native to southern Europe that has been used as a hedge for centuries. It is a staple plant of topiary, resilient to cutting, ideally growing dense foliage. Many of the hedges in our neighborhood--alas, including ours--are sparse and weak, looking rather rangy and dying away at the edge closest the driveway. Possibly these are suffering from our occasionally harsh winters, or from the salt that is liberally spread on the sidewalks when they are icy. The winter cold also changes the small green leaves of the shrub to a not unattractive bronze.

Throughout its native range, boxwood comprises an important feature of bird habitat. The dense foliage provides protection from predators. In urban areas boxwood hedges are frequently nearly saturated with twittering house sparrows, that fall warily silent when a human stops to observe them. The small flowers that the plant produces are visited by bees, and the deer-resistant foliage, as well as the wood and bark, are poisonous. A history of medicinal uses (including treatments for syphilis, leprosy, and malaria) has largely been abandoned. The plant was also once used to make a hair dye, and its heavy wood (twice as hard as oak) was used to make printing blocks and other necessarily durable objects. Today boxwood's main purpose is to keep humans and their dogs on the sidewalk and out of the yard.


The bronzing winter foliage. Photo by cottonmanifesto.

Comments

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

i wonder why it needs such strong wood?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Good question! It didn't reveal itself in my research. There's an overwhelming amount of information about the plant in cultivation and a tiny smattering of info about the wild plant. I think if I was multilingual I'd have a better chance of finding out--it seems to grow wild in the Mediterranean area still.

[harrietbrown.livejournal.com]

I used to have that hedge in my front yard when I owned the house! I observed that, in addition to birds, cats also seemed to enjoy hiding in the hedge. Or perhaps they were just looking for some fast food?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen that happen, but it's a funny mental image!

Box Hedge

[roadie-58.livejournal.com]

I think the plant you have pictured is actually privet, ligustrum ovalifolium, see http://www.hedging.co.uk/acatalog/pics_10273.html for pics. The plants are similar to box, but are much larger, the leaves can be up to an inch (25 mm) in length, the plant is semi-evergreen. Privet bears small clusters of white flowers in mid summer, turning into blue/black berries in the autumn. All parts of the plant are poisonous, but leaves are eaten by a number of insects, and are commonly used to feed pet stick insects. Box bears much smaller leaves, about 10 mm long, and more rounded, the wood is quite dense, 54-60 lbs per cubic foot, is yellow in colour, and is used for rules and scales, chessmen, fancy boxes, engravers blocks and fine turnery. The wood of privet does not grow to any useful size.