Buxus microphylla Seeds | Chinese Boxwood Bonsai

Categories：Tree

Littleleaf Box seeds (Buxus microphylla)

LATIN NAME: Buxus microphylla

COMMON NAME: Littleleaf Box, Chinese Boxwood

Plant Profile

Littleleaf Box (Buxus microphylla) is a slow-growing, dense, evergreen shrub in the box family, native to warm woodlands of eastern Asia, while it is grown for its fine, dense, evergreen foliage, its slow, patient growth. Littleleaf box is one of finest and most patient of small evergreen trees, and it has been a tree of gardens and bonsai pots for a very long time. Mature plants top out at about Four metres. When it flowers, local bees and other insects make good use of it. Plants that offer this much while asking this little are rare enough to treasure.

Science & Biotechnology

Like other members of the box family, Buxus microphylla draws steady attention from botanists and plant breeders, who value the genus both as a subject of research and as a source of garden-worthy material. Littleleaf box has a real and distinguished place in the research. Modern propagation practice has made this species straightforward to raise by ordinary good methods.

Uses & Benefits

Gardeners value Littleleaf Box for its ornamental character, and the plant also fits naturally into herb, vegetable and cutting gardens. Ecologically, littleleaf box is a generous shrub of the garden. Its small, yellowish-green flowers feed bees and insects, and its fine, dense, evergreen foliage gives a neat, year-round cover and a shelter to the birds. For a grower, littleleaf box is an easy and rewarding shrub, and for a gardener it brings a fine, small-leaved, dense shrub to hedge, border and bonsai tray. A plant that has settled in will get along with only routine care.

Boxwood is the classic hedging plant; its alkaloid-rich bark had historical folk use but is toxic, so box remains firmly an ornamental and fine-carving wood.

Growing from Seed

Seed is the natural starting point for Littleleaf Box, and the process is uncomplicated. Use a loose, well-drained seed compost, sow evenly over the surface and cover lightly, and keep everything evenly moist in bright light. When the young plants are big enough to handle, space them into pots or a nursery row and let them size up before their final move.

Our Take

It forms a slow-growing, dense, evergreen shrub, which makes spacing and siting straightforward. Reaching four metres, it needs room to show its full form. In a sunny, freely drained position it needs little looking after.

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