Gum Tree Eucalyptus melliodora

Yellow Box is a paddock tree first and a garden tree a distant second. Given full sun and room it grows quickly into a broad, spreading shade tree with drooping grey green foliage, rough box bark on the trunk and lower limbs, and smooth pale branches above. Beekeepers plant it deliberately, because the cream flowers carry heavy nectar and yellow box honey is sold under its own name. Stock shade, dam surrounds, shelterbelts and revegetation work are where it belongs.

Box woodland country, and guarding it from stock

Its country is the box woodland belt of inland New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, so it takes hard frost, long dry spells and clay loam soils without complaint. Full sun, and very little water once the roots are down. It will grow on shallow and moderately fertile ground and does not need soil improvement. Older trees develop hollows, which is a large part of why the species carries so much weight in revegetation plans. In a shelterbelt, space for the broad crown it will eventually carry, and keep the row clear of fence lines so bark and small branch litter is not constantly dropping onto wire.

Yellow Box is usually lost to the stock it was planted for. Young trees are palatable, they are slow to lift their foliage above browsing height on a dry paddock, and cattle and sheep will strip the lower leaves and rub the stem until the bark is gone down one side. A tree put into open pasture for shade with no guard is usually dead or permanently misshapen long before it gets away, and replacing it every spring is how most farm shade plantings quietly fail. Guard or fence every plant and keep stock out until the canopy is well above reach. Mature trees have the reverse problem, because stock camp under them for that shade, and the compaction and nutrient load around the trunk show up years later as crown dieback. Fence part of the root zone or move the camp.

Yellow Box against grey box and red ironbark

Its nearest neighbour in this range is grey box, which carries finer, closely flaky pale grey bark and smaller buds and gumnuts, and holds a denser, duller crown. Yellow Box has the heavier nectar flow and the more open, drooping canopy. For winter flowering rather than warm season flowering, red ironbark covers the gap in the bee calendar with dark furrowed bark and cream to pink flowers. Run all three on a larger property and you have nectar across most of the year. If you are choosing only one for stock shade, Yellow Box spreads widest and throws the most useful summer shade of the three, which is why it is the tree left standing in so many cleared paddocks. See more in natives.

Four years of shaping, then deadwood only

Do the formative work in the first three or four years: one leader, competing stems shortened rather than cut flush, and the canopy lifted slowly as the trunk thickens, all of it done in late winter. After that, keep pruning to deadwood and to limbs over targets, because big cuts on a mature box invite decay and the tree responds with weakly attached regrowth. Feeding is unnecessary on rural ground. In a garden setting, a native blend applied in the first two springs is enough, and the phosphorus level on the bag is the number that matters. Mulch instead of running turf to the trunk, and water through the first two summers.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 3 sizes, from 140mm up to 300mm, priced from $16.95 to $93.95 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 Australian native trees for shade.