Clearing Heavy Snow Off Mature Boxwoods - December 2025

The past few days, we've had some melting of the snow around here.  We've already experienced 17" of snowfall thus far and Winter hasn't even started.  The snow came fast and heavy.  That created a couple of issues for me:  the piles next to the driveway were getting pretty tall.  And...the plants were covered.  

That's actually a good thing.  And, potentially a bad thing.  Snowcover is a good thing in terms of insulation.  We're headed into a period of very cold temperatures soon and having the snow down for insulation is a positive thing for plant health.  

But, on the negative side, the heavy snow weighs down limbs.  And, for boxwoods, that's potentially a problem.  With enough weight, the evergreen shrubs will splay open.  And, if held there long enough, creates the potential for wreaking havoc on the shape of these shrub balls.  

The two sets of boxwoods that are the most mature (ones out front of the front porch and the colony of boxwoods by the kitchen windows) are the largest and most-vulnerable to splaying.  

As the snow began to melt, I went out front with a push broom and began to try to push some of the snow off the tips and limbs of shrubs.  I've learned that you have to be delicate in removing the snow and you don't need to remove ALL of it - just enough to release the pressure/release the limb from being pinned to the ground.  

The centers of all of these boxwoods out front (photo below) were showing their crown, but as I moved the snow off the limbs, they began to close-up and recover.  Are they going to be 'fine'?  I'm not sure.  But, they're better today with the snow off of them than they were pinned down.

I've done this just about every Winter.  Here's a post from 2021 showing the same boxwood shrubs that I dug out from heavy snow.   Here's a post and photo from 2023 showing them snowed in.  

Here, below, is a Google Search widget that takes you to some real how-tos when it comes to removing snow from your boxwoods: