Norfolk Island Pine Araucaria heterophylla

The Norfolk Island pine builds even tiers of horizontal branches spaced up a dead straight trunk, each tier carrying short, soft, incurved needles. What sets it apart is that near-geometric regularity, held even in full beachfront exposure where salt wind shreds most other feature trees. It is a landmark plant: a single specimen on a large block, a repeated vertical along a foreshore, or a coastal windbreak line. Its natural home is Norfolk Island, and it has lined Australian beachfronts for well over a century.

Give a Norfolk light on every side

Full sun, free-draining sandy soil and open air. It is drought hardy once away, takes salt and constant wind without flinching, and it does not want heavy frost or cold wet clay. Plant it where nothing will crowd it and where you can leave it alone for decades, because this is a long-lived tree that gets genuinely large, and it is worth thinking a few decades ahead before putting one in a suburban front yard. On pure sand near limestone, new growth can pale from a trace element shortage, so a spring application including iron and manganese pays off. Stake only until the roots take hold and then remove the ties, since a trunk left tied thickens unevenly around them.

The one real failure mode is shade. Grown in the shadow of a building or crowded by neighbouring trees, the lower tiers thin out and the outline goes lopsided, and because araucarias do not reshoot from bare wood, that asymmetry is permanent. If you cannot give it clear light on every side for the whole of its life, plant something else in the gap and put the Norfolk where it has room.

Norfolk or Cook pine

These two are constantly confused, and the difference is easy to see once you know it. Cook Pine - Araucaria columnaris is narrow and columnar, holds stiffer awl-shaped foliage tight to the trunk, and leans as a matter of course. The Norfolk is broader, softer in the needle, symmetrical and upright. Choose the Cook pine for warm tropical and subtropical coasts and tight spaces; choose the Norfolk where you want the classic tiered beach silhouette and where winters are cooler, since it is the more cold tolerant of the two. Neither is a small-garden tree, and both eventually shed heavy cones and branchlet litter that has to be raked off paths and out of gutters. Both are in feature trees.

Do not top it, ever

Pruning is essentially limited to removing dead lower tiers, cut flush to the trunk in the warmer months so the wound closes cleanly. Never shorten the leader. The tree cannot generate a replacement, and a topped Norfolk stays disfigured or throws multiple weak competing tips that shed in storms. Feed young trees in spring with a slow-release fertiliser plus trace elements on sandy soil, and keep water up for the first two summers while the roots run. After that an established tree in the right position is close to self-sufficient.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 11 sizes, from 300mm up to 2000L, priced from $99.95 to $8779.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Every size here is established stock rather than a starter plant, so this line is intended for immediate effect rather than for growing on. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to Australian native trees.