Cider Gum Eucalyptus Trees

Eucalyptus gunnii, Cider Gum Trees. 3-Litre Pot-Grown Plants

Cider Gum is a very fast-growing tree that can be hard pruned into a large shrub for its attractive, fragrant new foliage, which is blue-ish and glaucous: best beloved of flower arrangers. It is suitable for tall screening and windbreaks.

Left as a tree, it can grow to 15-30 metres, depending on location.

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Features

• Evergreen, fragrant leaves.
• Blue-ish new foliage.
• Mainly coppiced / hard pruned as a large shrub.
• Tall screening, good for windbreak
• Max. Height as a tree 30m
• RHS Award of Garden Merit
• Year Round Delivery.

Growing Eucalyptus gunnii

Rated at H5 hardiness, it will grow in most locations in the UK that receive full sun and are sheltered. Tolerant of a range of soils and conditions, but is happiest in a fertile, neutral-acid soil.

If left to its own devices, it will quickly become a very large tree, so, unless you want that, tough love is the best way to deal with it: keep it hard-pruned as a shrub from the start. This will promote new growth carrying the loveliest immature leaves. It coppices especially well (cut to a low stool), and could be pollarded as a lollipop with a little extra pruning (cut back to a trunk about 1.5-2 metres high).

In Your Garden Design

Handy for providing a tall screen, though make sure you keep on top of the annual pruning, so it doesn't run away with itself - it grows up to 2m a year in the right conditions. If you do decide to let it grow into a tree, it will reward you with lovely flaking bark in shades of grey, cream and pinkish brown. Kept coppiced, the rounded blueish green foliage provides a beautiful evergreen backdrop to the border, especially with blues, pinks and whites, or you could use it with coppiced willow and dogwoods for winter colour in a shrubbery. And you will always have plenty of fragrant greenery for your flower arrangements!

Did You Know?

A native of Tasmania, the cider gum is so called because it produces a sweet sap that the Aboriginal people ferment into an alcoholic drink. The fragrant leaves are filled with essential oils.