This Boxwood's leaves -- deep-green ovals with creamy, yellow-gold margins -- add great color contrast to borders and foundation plantings or when grouped to form a low hedge. Because 'Aureovariegata' is slow growing, it makes a great container plant, too.

Among the 70 species of this widely dispersed genus, you'll find some of the best hedging plants to separate garden rooms and to outline formal plantings. Dense and multibranched, they lend themselves easily to pruning early in the season, but can be kept to more informal shapes with only light tweaking. Inconspicuous yellowish green flowers appear in spring. The small, evergreen leaves are opposite, leathery, and slightly ovalshaped, with a distinct odor. Boxwood prefers well-mulched, moist, cool soil in full sun or light shade, protected from winter winds and extremes.