I have several very old boxwoods.They have been trimmed (not by me) so the bottom half has no leaves,just bare stems.I need to know if I can cut them back hard and they will fill out again?
To be most gentle, let the bare legs sprout back out on their own for a few years and then cut off the tops above that point. Otherwise, you can cut box back to stumps and it will not die. But you will be looking at stumps for months if you do it at this time of the year. And even after they sprouted new stems from the stumps next spring you would be waiting for years to get bushes of any size back, due to their quite slow annual growth.
