Where are you located? Did you have an unusually cold winter? Does the brown area appear to be growing larger/spreading?

Animal urine will do that. Box is also sensitive to drainage issues. Winter damage would also look like that, but it wouldn't be spreading. Please google 'boxwood blight' and see if that sounds like your problem - that's the most serious possibility.

that would be one seriously big dog.. lol ...

that would be snowblower damage in my MI ...

i doubt its spreading ... i would think more.. that there was some serious insult ... to a larger area than you first noticed.. and some is just taking longer to die off ...

if it were me.. i would trim out all the dead .. and see what happens ... and if it doesnt show some serious signs of regrowing by fall ... probably replace it.. or try something else.. since its right out the front door ...

i dont understand why you say it dying from the inside... there is no sun inside.. so most all plants .. especially ones trimmed like this.. are bare looking inside ... pull one of the others apart gently.. and note such ...

i am almost wondering if some drunken friend didnt fall into it... do you have any friends like that.. lol ...

ken

I am having the exact same issue (Tampa, FL). As a matter of fact, I found this image by "google imaging" and chose this, specifically, because it's the only one I can find that looks JUST like it. I have around 30 plants around the perimeter of my house. It started on 2 bushes on one side, then to one at the front of the house, now it has somehow spread 50 feet to the tiniest piece of another one on the other side of the yard. This tells me it's not drainage, but it also doesn't look like, or sound like, blight. I know what coreygood is referring to as far as the "inside out". It seems like the dying happens from the inside of the bush and not from the top.

There is no way it could be an animal. I hope someone can respond with some assistance. I fear that this will just keep spreading since we don't have hard freezes.

Hope someone stumbles upon this and can help coreygood & I.

That's exactly it, brownthumbtampa, and a better way to describe it than the inside out. Sorry to hear you are having troubles, but glad I'm not the only one.

Definitely too too tall for any animal urine - not even cat spray can get this high. We've been in the house three years, the plants longer, and this year and maybe maybe last year is the first time I've seen it happen. We eventually want to change everything, but need to plan it out and would like to make sure everything looks as good as possible in the meantime.

Coreygood, I looked at your picture closely and you can actually "see" the path of the damage. There are dead leaves under the green toward the upper left.

My boxwoods are 20+ years old and serve as a "pretty fence" between my house and the neighbors. Paying for a fence is not on my list of "to do's".

My mom was a master gardener (in freezing cold Michigan) and I sent her your picture (as I said, EXACTLY the same). She told me to look at the "dead" a little closer but her guess is that it is an insect (and possibly not visible) and recommends a pyrethrin based insecticide.

I'll take a closer look at the dead and try to give an update for the person who will, inevitably, run across this string and have a magical answer. :)

If you've ruled out blight & winter damage, the next possibility is mites. Shrubs that are planted close to a building (in the rain shadow) or shrubs with dense foliage (like sheared box) may be infested by mites. Mites are not insects and an insecticide is only mildly effective in controllong them. Check Amazon for a miticide (Avid, Floramite, etc). You'll need to order online because its a specialty product. Google "spider mite" to see if your symptoms match. Good luck.

Mites are hard to kill and so miticides are quite deadly. I wouldn't throw that stuff about without a lot of thought.

I notice a splosh of something on the pavement, suspiciously close to the area of damage. But I suppose this is nothing much. Maybe you watered the area to see if it would pick up.

If you have not watered the area, or even if you have, why not check the soil for moisture in the area near the damage? Is is a dry spot? Do the sprinklers reach that bit of ground?

If the soil seems fine, then I think I would first of all cut away all the damage and see what the plant does. Clean secateurs after use so you don't spread any possible fiends around.

I live approximately 30 miles south of Birmingham, Alabama and my Boxwood's did the same thing at about the same time yours did. I had 6 or 8 Boxwoods and they had been planted at this location for about 8 years. One of them started dying from the inside of the bush and worked to the outside until the entire bush was dead. The process took about 30 to 60 days and once it was dead you could pulled the bush right out of the ground with very little effort and there were no roots at all left on the bush. I Thought it was just a bad plant and thought nothing else about it until the next bush starting showing the same symptoms a few weeks later. I purchased several different pesticides for bugs and worms to try and save the next bush but no luck. It died the same way and whatever it was continued on to the next bush and the next bush, until all the Boxwoods were gone, even my 4 Azaleas died the same way! They all died ONE BY ONE. I never replaced any of the bushes/shrubs but I still have a couple of large Holly and 2 of some other kind of shrub. After a few years of being dormant, the problem is back killing one of my other scrubs! What is this creature and how do you get rid of it?