2021 Five Year Native Tree Challenge: SgtPilko's Common Box

[SgtPilko]

A very late entry, but my sickly taxus is not progressing that well so need a backup!

Common Box or Buxus Sempervirens is native and lives wild here in the south east of the UK. There's a famous spot where I go to ride my bike called Box Hill in Surrey, covered in the stuff.

This piece is urbandori, purchased back in February. This year I just let it grow and got to know it, the foliage needs to fill out and I added some light wiring on young flexible shoots to hopefully get some movement. I like the trunk and flare at the base, but deciding on best front angle has not been so easy, the whole thing needs compacting, there is also some awkward 'boner' looking deadwood that needs some carving as well as the chopped trunk ends. Time to get some dremel practice!

 

[SgtPilko]

Starting some carving and shortening of the trunks. Should have set the structure ages ago so that branching can happen in the right places... ah well. How this one will end up is anyone's guess!

 

[SgtPilko]

New season update... Not much change, budding out well, some of the foliage was poor and spindly before so still need to work on branching and carving.

 

[SgtPilko]

Couple of months later, the foliage has filled out and looking nice and healthy. I'll do some pruning and wiring once it has hardened off.

 

[SgtPilko]

Not really moving this on as quickly as I should be doing - still more branch selection and silhouette editing needed, I still have the possibility of two opposite fronts, and more carving needed to sort out the deadwood and cut ends.

 

[SgtPilko]

This one continues to fill out, pads and branching developing. This still may not look like much when we judge later this year, as will just have time for repot and one more styling.

 

[Gabler]

This still may not look like much when we judge later this year, as will just have time for repot and one more styling.

This probably should have been a seven year challenge instead of a five year challenge.

 

[SgtPilko]

The longer the better, although I think we've lost some competitors along the way!