How to Care for Littleleaf Boxwood

Grow littleleaf boxwood in your landscape if you live in USDA zones 5 through 9. Specific cultivars, such as 'Winter Gem,' 'Winter Beauty' and 'Sunnyside,' will survive in the warmer portions of Zone 4 if you place them where biting winter winds cannot affect them.

Select a site for your littleleaf boxwoods that is partially shady. These shrubs perform best with some protection from direct sunlight. In the northern parts of its growing range, littleleaf boxwood easily tolerates full-sunshine locations, but in the warmer zones, the plant will do well when it gets some shade in the afternoon, when summer temperatures are at their hottest.

Prevent the roots of littleleaf boxwood from drying out by keeping the ground around the shrub watered during dry periods. The roots of this shrub are shallow, so mulching them protects them from drought in summer and the cold weather in winter.

Prune your littleleaf boxwoods in the summer when using them to create hedges or as edging in a shrub border. Littleleaf boxwood is extremely tolerant of pruning, notes Floridata. To rejuvenate a littleleaf boxwood, opt to prune it at the end of spring, but fertilize the shrub and place some mulch around the roots when you finish. Never prune a littleleaf boxwood before the last spring frost date, as pruning promotes the development of new growth that a late frost will kill or damage, advises the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Refrain from planting anything close to a littleleaf boxwood shrub. The shallow root system the shrubs send out makes it difficult for other plants to grow near it.