Kurrajong

The brachychitons are Australia's own boulevard trees: bottle trees, kurrajongs and flame trees, drought-hardy, sculptural and increasingly the signature planting of warm-climate landscape design. This page lists every brachychiton available from our partner farms.

The Queensland bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) is the icon, its swollen trunk a living water tank that makes an instant landmark in any dry garden; established specimens transplant famously well, which is why they anchor so many new estates. The Illawarra flame tree answers it in colour, covering its bare branches in scarlet bells in early summer, a sight visible streets away.

The flowering hybrids bring the flame-tree display down to garden scale, mostly grafted for reliable colour: Jerilderie Red, Bella Pink, Bella Donna, Griffith Pink and Magenta Bells, with the little kurrajong (B. bidwillii) flowering pink on a shrub-sized plant. The classic kurrajong (B. populneus) remains the inland farm shade tree, joined by the lacebark (B. discolor) and the compact whitsundayensis-type B. compactus.

Growing notes: brachychitons want sun and drainage and little else. They are semi-deciduous, often dropping leaves just before or during flowering, which is normal and part of the display. Young trees put energy into their taproot first, so growth can look slow for a year before it accelerates; water deeply but infrequently to encourage that root. Frost-tender when small, they toughen with age in all mainland capitals.

See companions in Australian natives and feature trees. Every order ships farm-direct with flat $99 delivery across QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and WA, a $399 minimum order, and the 30-Day Healthy Plant Guarantee.