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Putting structure and boxwood in the same sentence makes most gardeners picture tight little rows that transform a landscape into a geometric puzzle filled with French-poodle balls or likenesses of Winston Churchill. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This shrub can be sheared in a formal fashion or left in an untrimmed and natural state.

Boxwood is an essential tool in helping give gardens a sense of organization. A bunch of plants, after all, does not a garden make. Structure, which guides a visitor’s eyes and feet through a space, is the underpinning of the gardener’s vision. This organizing principle can be achieved with hardscaping, such as paths and walls, but can also incorporate the landscaping materials themselves.

The use of boxwood can be traced back 4,000 years to the Egyptians; they, and, later, the Greeks and Romans, valued its strong, elastic wood for making tools and objects like musical instruments, ornamental boxes, and combs. Native in much of southern and eastern Europe, it eventually became a critical component of the French parterre. The Romans reintroduced box to Britain, where it had grown before the Ice Age, and colonists in the New World sent home for it from the mid-1600s on, as their gardens became more grand. Box isn’t native to the United States, but it has been with us for so long, and has been so integral to our gardens, that it’s hard not to think of it as family.

An ideal evergreen hedge or topiary plant, box takes well to trimming and has a thick covering of leaves that gives the impression of a continuous surface. You plant this shrub as much for your grandchildren as for yourself; it can live to be 300 years old.

Most of us think of box in the way that Gertrude Stein thought of roses. Since we look at it as defining the structure of the garden, or as material for sculpting, we rarely notice its details. Yet there are characteristics that should be taken into account when choosing plants. Of the five species, and more than 100 commercially available cultivars, three species are used most often. Make sure you buy the ones that best fill your needs. (Though boxwood does bloom in the spring, the flowers are small and of little visual interest.)

Buxus sempervirens, also called common box, is a species that has dense, fine-textured foliage. It grows as both a shrub and a tree, and is hardy to Zone 6. Its best-known cultivars are "Suffruticosa," or English box, and "Arborescens," American box. English box is a rounded, mounding shrub with tufts of cloudlike, fine-textured foliage. This is the standard for close-cropped edging because it can grow less than 1 inch per year over a three-century life span. Traditionally, English box was used to enclose the sections of kitchen gardens and parterres. American box, useful for topiaries and tall hedges, has larger, coarser leaves, and grows within 100 years to a height of 20 feet and a width of 15 feet.

The B. sempervirens cultivar "Graham Blandy" grows like a telephone pole: just 1 foot in diameter, it attains heights of 15 to 18 feet, with full green foliage. If it reminds you of an exclamation point, use it as one. "Elegantissima," a spectacular specimen plant with creamy variegated foliage, has a broad, conical growth habit, reaching a height of 6 to 7 feet and a width of 3 to 4 feet. "Vardar Valley," which tops out at about 6 feet, is a broad, open, spreading plant that retains its dark-green color all winter; its new foliage has a lovely blue cast, which weathers away by late summer. This cultivar and the 3-foot-tall dwarf form are typically used for hedges.

Buxus microphylla, littleleaf box, is hardier than B. sempervirens, growing as far north as zone 5. If you’re in a mood for some garden pom-poms, a cultivar of B. microphyllavar. japonica, "Morris Midget", is the plant for you. With medium-green foliage and a round growth habit, it reaches 12 to 18 inches with a 2- to 3-foot spread.

Korean boxwood, Buxus sinica var. insularis, will survive in zone 4 if protected (with windbreaks or by siting) from harsh winter winds and sun. Protected or not, the foliage may bronze in cold weather. The conical "Justin Brouwers" reaches 3 feet.

Of course, you can’t have been around as long as boxwoods have without making a few enemies. Thankfully, you won’t have to worry about deer, which usually ignore it. English box is prey to mites and fungus-induced cankers, and most cultivars are susceptible to the insects boxwood psyllid and boxwood leaf miner. (Call your county Cooperative Extension Service for ways to manage them.)

A little vigilance is a small price to pay for the beauty and functionality box offers. What other shrub lets you hang an entire garden on its back?
This article appeared in Garden Design, A World Publications magazine. You can subscribe online.