Boxwood ‘Green Velvet’

* Common name: Boxwood ‘Green Velvet’

* Botanical name: Buxus ‘Green Velvet’

* What it is: A rounded, compact evergreen that holds its green color well in winter, is reliably hardy, disease-resistant, not a deer favorite and doesn’t have that English boxwood odor that some say smells like “cat pee.”

* Size: 3 to 4 feet tall and wide.

* Where to use: Two main roles: as foundation evergreens (especially under windows) and for lining walkways. Also can be spotted regularly throughout flower gardens to give rhythm to a bed or used along picket fences and vegetable gardens for a Colonial feel. Dappled or part shade is ideal, but ‘Green Velvet’ is tough enough to take full sun.

* Care: Go light on the mulch. Water if it gets really dry, especially when young. An annual spring scattering of a granular, acidifying fertilizer such as Holly-tone or Holly Care should do it for feeding. Anal-retentives can shear plants into neat balls two or three times a year; others can give an occasional light haircut. Spraying unlikely, but watch for occasional psyllid or mite attack.

* Great partner: Interplant with pink and/or white tulips in spring, then front with white annuals in summer: white impatiens in shade, white petunias in sun.