Choosing a lilly pilly: which one for hedges, screens and feature trees - Plant Drop

Choosing a lilly pilly: which one for hedges, screens and feature trees

Lilly pilly is the default answer to almost every screening question in Australia, which is why so many of them disappoint. The name covers dozens of species and cultivars maturing anywhere from knee high to fifteen metres, with very different tolerance to the one pest that ruins them. Choosing well means matching leaf size, mature height, pest resistance and fruit habit to the job.

The genus mess, explained plainly

Three botanical names turn up on lilly pilly labels: Syzygium, Acmena and Waterhousea. Botanists have folded all three into Syzygium, so Acmena smithii is formally Syzygium smithii and Waterhousea floribunda is Syzygium floribundum. The trade kept the old names because they describe real differences, so treat them as three practical families.

  • Syzygium, the brush cherries, mainly S. australe and S. paniculatum. Glossy leaves, bright pink or bronze new growth, fast, and the group nearly every hedging cultivar comes from. Also the group with the pest problem below.
  • Acmena types, mainly Acmena smithii. Duller, leathery leaf, tougher, more cold tolerant and essentially untroubled by psyllid. Slower to fill than the brush cherries but less trouble long term.
  • Waterhousea, the weeping lilly pilly. Long narrow drooping leaves and a genuinely large tree. The wrong plant for a small hedge, whatever the label says.

Everything in the lilly pilly range sits in one of those camps, and knowing which one tells you most of what you need to know.

Psyllid resistance: the criterion nobody mentions

The lilly pilly psyllid is a tiny sap sucking insect that attacks soft new growth. It does not kill the plant. It does worse than that to a hedge: it puckers each new leaf into permanent pimples and dimples, and that damage never grows out. A susceptible variety can look chewed across its whole face after one summer flush.

  • Susceptibility is variety specific. Old unselected brush cherry forms are hit hardest. Acmena types and the weeping lilly pilly are largely unaffected. Named brush cherry cultivars were bred for resistance, Syzygium australe 'Resilience' being a well known example.
  • Spraying after the fact does nothing. By the time you see damage the leaf is already deformed. The only fix is clipping it off, which is why psyllid hurts unclipped specimens far more than a hedge sheared twice a year.
  • Buy resistance rather than manage it. There is no reason to plant a susceptible variety when resistant selections cost the same and grow just as fast.

For a long boundary run, this question matters more than any other. Check the variety on the listing, and if you are unsure which camp it sits in, ask before ordering forty of them.

Which type for which job

Formal clipped hedge, knee to shoulder height

You want small leaves and short internodes. Large leaved varieties look coarse at this scale, and a hedge trimmer slices those leaves in half, leaving a brown cut edge across the face for weeks. Dwarf Acmena selections and compact brush cherries clip cleanly. Tip prune from the day you plant, not when the plants reach full height, or you get a bare legged hedge dense only at the top. Compare across the hedging range first, because a compact westringia or Indian hawthorn holds a low formal hedge on far less water.

Boundary screen, three to five metres

This is where lilly pilly earns its reputation. Medium leaved, psyllid resistant brush cherry selections give a dense evergreen wall quickly and hold a controlled height for decades. Two clips a year in the growing season is normal on the east coast, and this is most of what people want from the privacy screening collection.

Tall screen, five metres and up

Pick a variety whose natural mature height sits comfortably above your target. A plant clipped well below its natural height stays vigorous; one pushed above it thins out. Straight species Acmena smithii and the taller brush cherry forms both work. Buy advanced stock here: a six metre screen started from 200mm pots means years of waiting, which is what the advanced trees range is for.

Narrow side setbacks

Columnar brush cherry selections bred to stay around a metre wide are the answer for a 1.5m side passage. Keeping a spreading variety narrow by clipping both faces hard every year gives you a thin, stressed plant with bare patches. Choose the habit rather than manufacture it.

Feature and avenue trees

Left unclipped, the weeping lilly pilly makes a large domed shade tree with a heavy skirt of narrow foliage, and it is a strong driveway avenue or lawn specimen where there is room. It needs that room. Riberry types, fine leaved with vivid pink new growth, make smaller feature trees. For an avenue, plant one variety from one batch: mixed batches never line up.

Spacing and starting size

Tighter spacing closes gaps sooner but costs more and crowds the plants long term. These are the centres we use.

Job Starting size Spacing (centres) Notes
Low formal hedge, under 1m 140mm to 200mm 400mm to 500mm Small leaf types only. Tip prune from planting.
Hedge, 1.5m to 2.5m 200mm to 300mm 600mm to 800mm Two clips a year keeps the face flat.
Screen, 3m to 5m 300mm to 45L 1m to 1.5m Wider spacing if you want individual plant form.
Tall screen, 5m plus 45L to 100L 1.5m to 2m Advanced stock saves years.
Narrow columnar in a setback 200mm to 45L 800mm to 1m Choose a narrow variety, do not clip one narrow.
Avenue or specimen 100L plus 4m to 8m Space to canopy width, not to trunk size.

Sizes across the lilly pilly collection run from 140mm pots to advanced containers, so most varieties can be had at whichever size the budget allows.

Fruit drop near paving, pools and driveways

This is the complaint we hear after the fact, and it is avoidable. Lilly pilly fruit is soft and it stains. The magenta cherry types carry the largest, juiciest fruit in the group, and on light pavers or a pool surround they crush underfoot and mark the surface. The weeping lilly pilly drops small fruit but sheds narrow leaves constantly, and that is the litter that fills a skimmer basket week after week.

  • A regularly clipped hedge barely fruits. Clipping removes the wood that would have flowered, so fruit is mostly a problem of unclipped screens and specimen trees.
  • Keep large fruiting types off hard surfaces. Set them back at least the mature canopy radius from paving you care about, and further on the windward side.
  • Near a pool, choose small leaf and small fruit, or step away from lilly pilly and look at a palm or another low litter evergreen.

Where lilly pilly is the wrong plant

  • Dry inland gardens without irrigation. These are rainforest plants. They want consistent moisture, especially through the first two summers, and go thin and ratty without it. On a hot dry site, hardier natives or an olive screen look better on a fraction of the water.
  • Hard frost hollows. Young plants burn. Acmena types are the most cold tolerant of the group and riberry types the most tender. Cold inland sites are a real limitation, not a detail.
  • Front line coastal exposure. Salt laden wind shreds them. Put westringia or another coastal tolerant native in the first row and the lilly pilly behind it.
  • Deep shade. They survive on a south wall but go open and leggy. A screen needs sun on the face you want dense.

Getting them established

Dig the hole twice the width of the pot and no deeper. Water deeply and less often rather than lightly and daily, mulch to the drip line but keep it off the trunk, and feed with a slow release fertiliser in spring. Most lilly pillies reshoot from old wood, so a neglected hedge can be cut back hard and recovered, unlike a conifer. Do that hard cut in the warm growing season, not mid winter.

Ordering

Delivery is a flat $99 per order, with a $399 minimum, to QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and WA. Order a hedge or screen run in one go so the plants match and arrive at the same stage. Start with the full lilly pilly range, or weigh it against the rest of the hedging and screening options if you are still working out what the site needs.

Plants featured in this guide

Everything below is currently available farm-direct, with flat $99 delivery in QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and WA and a $399 minimum order.

Browse the full range: Lilly Pilly

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