if you take the time.. to observe the gap.. where i presume the injury occurred ... you should be able to 'see' how the plant is responding ...

look for new shoots where material was broken ...

logic would follow that if you had pruned to that point.. the plant would have the same reaction .. and regrow ...

which would then leave you with making a plan on how far you want to go .. and how hard you want to work ...

im really surprised a little snow load killed a plant outright .... and i cant see such in the pic provided ...

if it were in MI.. i might think its a privet ... but there is no scale in the macro pic.. and this MI boy really doesnt know all the possibilities in the PNW ... so i leave the ID to others ...

ken

Yes, they're box. Cut at any height and diameter you want, it's still early enough in the season that you can get some good re-sprouting before winter.

Thanks. For ID purposes they don't flower or drop leaves- just kind of stay the course.

I had already removed the dead plant, which is where the gap is in the photo- it was all brown/yellow, no more green. I was pretty surprised too- but our snow is known as cascade cement for a reason. Never thought I would have to shovel my plants- we generally get a light dusting every year or so. This storm was a good 6-8 inches.

I'd actually like them to be a bit taller, but they seem to be falling over under their own weight and that's why they won't stay even. Maybe I need to thin them.

They're evergreen so no, they don't drop leaves in one go. But they do drop over time. And they also flower but the blooms are greenish in colour and not showy.

The photo angle makes it difficult to guess the height but box will not make a tall hedge. They are bushy and tend to dumpiness. As Embothrium said you can cut them back as hard as you like. That's why they're so widely used for (low) hedging and topiary.

Thanks everyone for the advice. Dumpiness is a good adjective to describe the state they are in. I'll try to cut them back to a more manageable state.