Kurrajong Brachychiton populneus

Anyone who has driven inland New South Wales in a dry year has seen kurrajongs standing green in a bare paddock while everything around them has given up. The trunk thickens with age towards the bottle shape old specimens are known for, the glossy leaves vary from entire and poplar like to deeply lobed on the same tree, and cream bells freckled with maroon inside open along the branches. It is planted for shade and shelter on acreage, rural driveways and large yards.

A dry country tree that asks for very little

Full sun, low water once established, and it grows across an enormous range: inland and coastal New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and much of Western Australia. It takes frost better than the other kurrajongs here, tolerates poor shallow soil, and handles long dry spells by shedding leaf and recovering when rain comes, which is normal behaviour for a semi deciduous species and not a fault. Drainage is the only soil requirement worth insisting on.

The failure mode is placement. This is a long lived tree with a deep taproot and a wide canopy, and the woody boat shaped follicles split open to release seed packed in fine irritant hairs. Pods drop, get walked on, crushed and blown about, and the hairs itch badly on skin and in eyes. Sited near a pool, a play area, a footpath or a spot where cars park underneath, a mature kurrajong becomes a nuisance that no amount of pruning fixes. Give it space away from hard surfaces and foot traffic and it is close to trouble free.

The full sized kurrajong against the garden ones

This is the species most people mean by kurrajong, and it is the largest and hardest wearing of the group offered here. Bidwill's Kurrajong is the one to take instead if the space is a courtyard or a garden bed, since it stays shrubby and flowers rose red at eye level. Jerilderie Red suits a suburban block or a driveway where you want reliable red flowering rather than cream. Take the straight species when the priority is shade, shelter and longevity, and when there is real room to give it. It is also the traditional fodder tree of the inland, cut for stock when the paddocks run out, which tells you plenty about how it handles a dry season.

Shaping a young kurrajong

Do the shaping early. Select a leader and space the main limbs in the first few seasons, then lift the crown gradually to the clearance you want for mowing or vehicles, since small cuts made young beat large cuts made later. Prune in late winter to early spring. Feeding is barely needed in reasonable soil, and a low phosphorus native slow release fertiliser in spring for the first few years is plenty, since rich feeding only makes soft growth. Water deeply but infrequently while it establishes, then leave it to its own devices. See the others under kurrajong.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 9 sizes, from 140mm up to 200L, priced from $26.95 to $1189.00 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 Australian native trees.