Bottlebrush Callistemon Kings Park Special (Melaleuca)

At roughly four to six metres, Kings Park Special outgrows every other cultivar stocked here. Left to run it becomes a small tree with arching limbs and papery bark down the trunk, and the brushes are bright red and noticeably longer than those of the compact forms, heaviest in spring with a second showing later in the season. Foliage is narrow and grey green, faintly pink as it emerges. It goes in where a screen has to reach well above head height, or as a small shade and bird tree standing in lawn.

Measure the space before you dig

The mistake this one attracts is siting. It arrives as a 200mm pot, gets treated as a shrub, and ends up under an eave, beneath powerlines or in a 900mm verge, where the only remedy left a few years on is topping. A topped Kings Park Special does not recover its shape: you get a flat crown, a rush of vertical shoots off the cuts and years of chasing it back. Check the mature height and spread against the position first. Growth is steady rather than explosive, and that is part of the trap, because the plant is unalarming for the first three or four years and by the time it is plainly too big for the spot it is too well established to move.

Ground it will tolerate

The selection came out of Kings Park in Perth, and it is among the more adaptable bottlebrushes on offer: coastal wind, inland heat, heavy clay and periods of waterlogging that would rot most ornamental trees. It wants an open aspect and gets by on modest water once the roots are down. For a tall screen allow 1.5 to two metres between plants and accept a broad informal wall rather than a crisp hedge. It is one of the few flowering trees that will hold in a low corner which floods briefly each summer, so it earns a place where other things have already died. Keep mulch off the trunk and water deeply rather than often.

Height, or a hedge, or neither

Against Eureka, which stays tighter and lower and holds a narrow line along a fence, this is the one to choose when the wall you are screening is two storeys and Eureka would simply not reach it. Against Endeavour, which takes hedging shears and can be held as a clipped block, Kings Park Special is happier grown loose and full sized. Take it for height and canopy, Endeavour for a cut face, Eureka for a modest suburban screen. On a narrow verge or in a courtyard none of the three belongs and a dwarf form is the honest answer. Larger sizes are grouped under advanced trees.

Shaping a young plant

Cut back into green wood as each flush finishes, before the woody seed capsules lock up the stem, and the base stays clothed instead of hollowing into the twiggy look untended plants fall into. If you want a single trunk with clearance beneath it, remove the lowest limbs progressively across the first few years rather than in one session, while the wounds are still small. Sawfly larvae turn up on soft tips in spring but rarely do lasting damage to a plant this size. One application of a native blend as growth starts in spring covers a tree of this size for the year. Once it is flowering at height it becomes a standing food source for nectar feeders rather than a seasonal visit.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 17 sizes, from 70mm up to 100L, priced from $16.95 to $649.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to planting for birds.