How 'hard' can you prune boxwood?

[Anonymous]

We have big boxwoods for foundational shrubs right up against the house. Bought the house with them. They are quite big, and becoming untenable. I'm having trouble walking behind them near the house. Tons of weeds are now growing those areas, and I can't really doing anything about it because of lack of space. There are also vines/ivy growing in the middle of them that I can't even pull out because they are very hard to reach. The boxwoods seem to be many years old and have very thick trunks. I wanted to rip them out completely and start all over again with new landscaping next year, but my wife wants to keep them. How hard can I prune them without killing them? Is it possible to remove as much at a 1-2 feet around all sides? It'll probably look like just branches if I did that, but will it grow back in?

[Anonymous]

Boxwood is very forgiving and can be heavily pruned. I did just that, cut almost 2/3 of it. It looked ugly for a while, but now it's green and thriving.
Please note that it's not a good time for heavy pruning now, it's better do it late winter/early spring.

[Anonymous]

Try it in late winter. If they look terrible, pull them out and replant in fall.

[Anonymous]

Trim up to 1/3 in November before Thanksgiving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try it in late winter. If they look terrible, pull them out and replant in fall.

They will look terrible for a while until new growth begins to fill in. Boxwood will grow new leaves wherever the sun hits, so if you prune it hard light will get to the newly exposed wood and it will sprout new growth. So it’s worth a try.

That said…if the shrubs are way too big and you don’t like them there is nothing wrong with getting rid of them. Does your wife actually like them, or does she feel badly about killing a plant?