The maintenance crew planted new boxwood bushes along the path to Central Hall April 8, replacing the ones removed March 27 due to damage from the winter’s cold, snow, and high winds, according to Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé. 

“Sometimes plants bounce back, but these could not be restored,” Péwé said in an email. “Replacement plants are going in this week.” 

Kevin Tarner, head greenhouse grower, estimated that the boxwoods the maintenance team removed were 20 to 40 years old. Since then, the breeding of boxwoods enhanced their cold-hardiness, so the new bushes, Korean boxwood-derived cultivars called “Green Mountain,” should survive harsh winters better, according to Tarner. 

The grounds and horticulture departments received the new boxwoods April 8 between 9 and 10 a.m., and transported and installed the plants all day Wednesday, according to Tarner. 

Grounds Keeper Larry Frank was out digging holes and planting bushes with around 9 other members of the maintenance crew Wednesday morning. 

“They’ll be in the ground today,” Frank said. 

Tarner said the living stem tissue inside the old boxwoods was killed because the temperature hit negative 9 degrees. Hillsdale’s temperature dropped below negative 9 degrees Jan. 24, according to the Weather Underground website. 

“When that happens, the plant is completely dead,” Tarner said. “The early warning sign is when they turn kind of brown or bronze on the top of the plant, and that happened across all the upper Midwest.” 

In addition to the harsh winter, Tarner said moths are attacking boxwoods in nurseries, which makes it harder to buy the plants. 

“If Hillsdale didn’t get in and get an order of size this early on, the boxwoods would collapse the rest of the way,” Tarner said. “The leaves would transition to the whole plant dying over time by graduation, which we couldn’t have because they’d all be brown and dead. It would be embarrassing, and then to find that boxwoods have been sold out, because everybody in the upper Midwest is going for them.”