What Has Happened To My Box Hedge

[TheyJustDontFit]

Can anyone please help. My box hedge is about 15 years old. Bern lightly pruned twice a year. Had always been healthy, over the last 2 weeks it has died.

It is kept on our boundary by a picket fence and our previous neighbours always allowed me to prune their side to keep it within our boundary.

New neighbours of just over a year do not allow this. It is their 2nd home and they are not there often. They leave one car in their drive when they are not in residence, right up to our fence so I can't access it at all. They appear to have cut it back on their side recently and the hedge dying has happened since then.

Any ideas? It is like this right through the hedge, which is made up of 5 plants. It's about 4 feet tall, in line with the top of our fence. No other plants are affected.

Box tree caterpillars by the look of it. They do completely defoliate the plant if you don’t catch them in time.

Box moth. It’s the end I’m afraid. Best solution is it get it replaced.

Oh no. I've never heard of them. Will removing the hedge get rid of them? Would I need to wait a time to replace? Off to check google on what to do next.

Thanks for the information.

Box moth. There's information on the RHS.

All our died last year too, same problem - box hedge caterpillars. We'd had them for nearly 20yrs. There is something for it you can get on amazon, just google 'Box hedge caterpillar treatment'. Xentari used to be the best one but was discontinued about 2yrs ago so not sure what they've replaced with. By the look of your one, it might not recover but you may be able to save any others you still have that still have some green life in them.

Unfortunately the whole hedge is like this.

This is the dreaded box caterpillar.
I've just spotted it on my own hedges outside the front of my house.
I'm going to spray with a vinegar and water solution.
Unfortunately it looks too late for your poor hedges now sorry.

We left ours all brown and lifeless as they are (we have lots of them around flower beds) surprisingly, I noticed some new green leaves have started to grow in some of the hedges, so don't be too hasty digging them all up.

You need this!

Box hedge caterpillar. No point letting the green shoots carry on growing. They'll be back to feast on them too. They have no natural predators here (South East UK and spreading). Best dig the plants up by the roots and plan to replace with more than one species, just in case. I wouldn't use chemicals. They'll harm other plants and useful creatures in the longer term.

Thanks for all the advice. I'll be filling in the RHS form and heading off to our local nursery to look for replacements and getting the spade out this week.

In case it helps anyone, if you're in the very south of the New Forest you might want to check your box plants.

I’m in Bristol and I don’t think anyone has any box left alive. It’s obviously a big problem.

Another vote for this! It really works. Don’t use if if it has just rained or it is about to rain though…

I'm in central Bath and we've had box caterpillars for 3-4 years now.

The plants used to bounce back, but most are now dead. I only know of one person (who is super-diligent with moth traps and spray throughout the year) who has managed to keep their hedge looking pristine.

It's such a shame

We had to get rid of all of ours also a few years ago as our 20 yo hedge was decimated. It’s a shared hedge and neighbours replaced with yew trees and we have put in grasses and salvia. Our entire are’s box hedges were decimated. One neighbour was super on to it and picked them off every year. Then they sold their house and hedge was attacked.

Just to say I'm in Essex and you basically don't see box anymore (except for defoliated plants people have left). It's so sad but there are similar plants that can replace it - have a Google.

Yes, absolutely this. I also use their moth trap. They are absolute fuckers but can be controlled.

Eeesh, I planted a load of box in April. It now all looks like this. I assumed it was the wrong soil or something but as all the other plants are fine this makes more sense!

I wonder if it's the end of box. We have one little topiary and the buggers found and stripped it this year.

Our entire estate has been decimated by these 🥲

Yep ours too this winter - I thought it was the cold weather or something but then someone mentioned the caterpillars.

our neighbours are just about the only house in the estate to have removed their decimated hedge.

Same thing has happened to mine. I put it down to the few really hot days last summer and the freezing cold at Christmas.

I bought some Xentari off Amazon. I used it last week and after a few hours went and had a look and there were loads of dead caterpillars on the ground. I will be giving it another treatment tomorrow.

If you want something that looks similar to replace it, buy ilex crenata. It looks like box but is part of the holly family, so is safe from the dreaded box caterpillar.

@Yamadori That's for that suggestion. Will look into that.

All the above.
You need to dig out your box and burn it.
We've just replaced ours with Yew. It looks fabulous and I actually prefer it to the box.