Gum Tree Eucalyptus fasciculosa

Pink gum is a small to medium eucalypt with an irregular, spreading crown and crooked branching rather than a straight forestry trunk. The bark is the marker: smooth and pale over most of the tree, above a short rough stocking that persists at the base. Clusters of white flowers bring in bees, honeyeaters and lorikeets. It earns its place on the sandy, gravelly and ironstone country where other trees simply sulk, planted for shade and shelter in paddock corners, wide verges and revegetation work.

Poor soils suit it, wet ones do not

It belongs to South Australia and western Victoria, through the Mount Lofty Ranges, Kangaroo Island and the south east, so a pattern of wet winters and dry summers is its home climate. Plant in full sun. Growth is fast for a tree of its size, and water needs are low once the root system is away, which makes it a sound choice for unirrigated rural blocks. It is frost hardy and it takes wind. It is a useful bee tree, and in its home districts revegetation plans often specify local provenance seed, so check the brief before substituting a nursery form.

The failure mode is drainage. This is a species of free draining sand, gravel and ironstone, and on a heavy clay flat that holds water through winter it declines slowly, thins in the crown and eventually collapses. If your ground stays wet, mound the planting area or plant something built for it. Be patient with the shape as well. Young trees are gawky for several years, and pruning them into line early only makes that permanent.

Three tough gums, three different sites

Compare it directly with bog gum, which is the one to plant where pink gum drowns: damp, poorly drained coastal ground in cool districts. Little ghost gum is the hot arid inland equivalent, white trunked and much less comfortable with cold wet winters. Pink gum sits between them, on dry infertile soils in a cool to warm temperate climate with real frost. Choose by drainage and by winter temperature rather than by looks, since all three are fast, evergreen and low water once established. Bog gum is the smallest of the three and the only one that holds at mallee scale, so it is the easier fit on a suburban block, while pink gum wants the room of a paddock corner, a wide verge or a revegetation line. The full range is under gum trees.

Leave it alone, mostly

Prune in late winter to early spring, and prune as little as you can. The useful work happens in the first two or three years: remove double leaders and any low branch you do not want while the cuts are still small. After that, restrict yourself to deadwood and storm damage, because large cuts on a mature eucalypt invite decay. Feeding is rarely needed. On very poor ground a light application of a low phosphorus native fertiliser in the first spring or two is enough, and lawn fertiliser drifting into the root zone does more harm than good. Water through the first two summers to draw the roots down, then stop.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 2 sizes, from 330mm up to 400mm, priced from $149.00 to $199.00 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 for shade.