Weeping Bottlebrush Callistemon viminalis (Melaleuca viminalis)

This is the true weeping bottlebrush, the species standing behind most of the weeping cultivars sold here. It grows into a small tree of roughly five to eight metres with fine foliage carried on genuinely pendulous branches that hang and sway, red brushes in a heavy spring flush and a lighter one later. It occurs naturally along watercourses through eastern Australia, and that origin is the practical point: it goes in where the ground stays damp, over a low corner, along a creek bank, or as a screen on a wet boundary.

Wet ground is the reason to plant it

Where a drain line, a swale or a low corner holds water for days after heavy rain, most screening plants rot at the collar. This one does not, and it still holds through a dry summer once the roots are down. Subtropical and warm temperate gardens through Queensland, New South Wales and coastal Victoria suit it, and it does well in Perth and Adelaide with water while it establishes. Young plants are the tender ones in cold inland gardens; a mature tree is considerably tougher. For a row screen, allow 2.5 to three metres between plants so each canopy hangs clear of the next.

Keep it away from pipes and paving

The appetite for moisture that makes it useful also makes it a poor neighbour for infrastructure. It carries an active surface root system that follows water, and a tree set a couple of metres from a slab edge, a paved path or an ageing clay drain line will in time lift the paving and find the joints in the pipe. Site it clear of both, at a distance that at least matches the canopy spread you are expecting, and it is an undemanding tree. Put it in a courtyard or on a narrow verge and the cost lands on somebody a decade later. The mulch ring matters as well on a tree standing in lawn, where damage to the base from the mower and the whipper snipper is the common injury.

Species or selection

The named forms exist because the species is large. Dawson River Weeper has longer, whip like branches and a stronger fall in a smaller frame. Captain Cook is the dwarf for hedges under a window. Hannah Ray sits between the two with grey green foliage at screening height. Take the straight species when you want the full tree, a genuine canopy over damp ground and a bird roost rather than a shrub, and take a cultivar when the space is measured in metres rather than tens of metres. The full genus sits under bottlebrush.

Care of a young tree

Tip prune right after each flowering, cutting back behind the spent brushes, since unpruned plants go woody and see through from below. If you want a clear trunk, lift the lower limbs gradually across the first several years. Sawfly larvae gather in dark clumps on the branches in spring and can strip foliage quickly, so knock them off as soon as you see them; the tree refoliates, but a young one loses a season of growth doing it. Bottlebrushes are not as sensitive to phosphorus as the proteaceous natives, so a general fertiliser will not harm this tree, though a native blend spread at the drip line in early spring is the simpler habit. It is now classified as Melaleuca viminalis.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 3 sizes, from 140mm up to 330mm, priced from $16.95 to $149.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to planting for birds.