New Zealand Christmas Bush

Salt spray and steady onshore wind are what Metrosideros is for. Leathery evergreen foliage, dense branching and a tolerance of sand and shallow coastal soils let these shrubs and small trees hold a front boundary that would burn off a lilly pilly or a viburnum in two seasons. Crimson bottlebrush-like flowers open in early summer, which is where the New Zealand Christmas Bush name comes from. Think of them for a boundary a few streets back from the beach, a hedge facing southerly gales, or a fence line that takes wind every afternoon.

Two limits decide whether they belong on your site. The first is cold. Young plants are frost tender, and a first-winter hedge in the Southern Tablelands, the Adelaide Hills or inland Victoria can lose its soft growth to a couple of hard frosts and then sit flat for the season. Established plants take light frost, but growth stays slow inland, so a hedge that knits in three years on the coast can take twice that away from it. Below roughly minus 2 degrees in a young planting, pick something else. The second is myrtle rust. Metrosideros belongs to the Myrtaceae, and pohutukawa is a recorded host of the disease in coastal NSW and Queensland, showing as yellow pustules on soft new growth. Inspect stock on arrival, avoid overhead watering late in the day, and expect to manage it in humid summers.

Placement is otherwise simple. Full sun, soil that drains, sand preferred over heavy clay that stays wet. They clip well, so shear twice a year for a formal face and take the harder cut once flowering finishes, before the next season of buds is set. Space dwarf forms about 60cm apart for a hedge and the larger forms 1m to 1.5m. Left unclipped, the full-size pohutukawa becomes a broad tree of 8m to 15m with heavy surface roots, so give it distance from paving.

Dwarf Pohutukawa Little Dugald is the compact form, from $16.95 across 125mm to 400mm pots, suited to low hedging and mass planting. Metrosideros tomentosa is the true pohutukawa, from $29.95 in 200mm and 300mm, either grown out as a tree or held at hedge height. Metrosideros Spring Fire comes in 5L and 30L, the 30L closing a screen within a season or two. Metrosideros thomasii starts at $109 and runs to 45L and 500mm, and Metrosideros excelsa Nana is a single 100L specimen for an entry or courtyard.

For other coastal work, Westringia handles the same salt and wind and clips as hard. On boundaries, compare evergreens in Hedges and Privacy Screening, or look through Advanced Trees for height from planting day.

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