Paperbark

Twenty one melaleucas, and fourteen of them carry Paperbark at the front of the title. The prefix is filing, not description. Melaleuca lateritia has no papery bark anywhere, and Little Red and Little Penta are bottlebrush selections that came across when Callistemon was folded into Melaleuca, so one plant turns up under both names. Melaleuca salicina is the third, listed twice: here as a paperbark in 300mm and 45L, and as Willow Bottlebrush in the bottlebrush range across seven grades from 140mm. Open both.

Trees for ground that goes under

Broad Leaved Paperbark is the standard call for swales, detention basins and the low corner that floods after storms, and a safer bet across more of the country than the northern Melaleuca viridiflora. The costs: a wide surface root system damages slabs, driveways and stormwater lines, the flowers set off hay fever in some people, and it seeds freely, so keep it well away from remnant wetland outside its home range. Hard frost checks it, so keep it coastal, warm temperate or subtropical. In a frost pocket use Melaleuca parvistaminea, which handles cold on a swale or dam margin, or Melaleuca salicina, frost hardy once settled, with pink and bronze spring growth, though scale and sooty mould follow stress. Melaleuca linariifolia, snow in summer, takes the same heavy wet ground at garden scale, and it is the one to buy if the peeling white trunk brought you here. The two Melaleuca leucadendra lines are the tropical end: fast, genuinely large, frost tender while young, roots that find drains, so parks, acreage and wide verges. Melaleuca preissiana and Melaleuca rhaphiophylla are the Western Australian swamp trees, at home under water all winter, rhaphiophylla even in salty groundwater.

Sun, sand and the wet feet exception

Moonah is the limestone coast survivor, dense on deep alkaline sand, low and twisted in wind, rounded in shelter. Scarlet Honey Myrtle is the exception to everything above. It wants sand, a mound or a slope, and air around the stems. In a wet airless summer on heavy soil it browns off inside a fortnight, root rot behind it. Showy honey myrtle self seeds beyond the garden in some southern districts, so check your council list. Melaleuca nodosa has sharp leaf tips, so keep it off paths, gates and play areas.

Compact forms, and cutting them on time

Snowstorm covers itself in white through summer at hedge height and never builds the papery trunk buyers keep expecting from the name. Melaleuca incana nana gives grey weeping foliage that breaks a run of dark green natives, and Narrow Nessie holds a screen line in a strip where the standard form sprawls. All want the same: shear the whole plant as soon as the brushes brown off, before the woody capsules set, every year. Leave a compact melaleuca to run for two seasons, then cut hard into bare old wood, and it is not reliably recovered from. Prune late and you remove the wood carrying the next flush.

Siting, feeding and grades

Full sun for all; shade thins the crown and costs the density you paid for. Set compact forms 60 to 75 cm apart for a low informal hedge. On heavy clay, mound the bed and backfill with the soil you dug out, not potting mix, and read the clay planting guide first. Feed lightly with a native blend in spring on poor sand; established trees rarely need it. Myrtle rust attacks soft new growth across this family in humid coastal Queensland and New South Wales, so check the tips after each flush and water at the base. Expect bark and flower litter all year, so keep the trees off pool surrounds and gutters. Thirteen of the twenty one lines start in a pot under two litres, and nine are listed in a single size only. Broad leaved paperbark is the one that reaches 300L.