Gum Tree Eucalyptus pulchella

White Peppermint is the gum with a light touch. The adult leaves are very fine and narrow and hang from drooping branchlets, so the canopy filters light instead of blocking it and the whole tree moves in a breeze. Bark is smooth and pale, shedding in ribbons over summer, and the small cream flowers bring bees in. The habit is upright with an open, fine textured crown of solid shade tree proportions, and it goes into paddocks, large gardens and rural driveway plantings.

Tasmanian dry country, and buying the right size

It is endemic to the dry eastern half of Tasmania, and on the mainland it suits cool temperate districts: central and western Victoria, the tablelands and slopes of New South Wales, the ACT and the Adelaide Hills. Frost is no obstacle and neither is poor, dry, gravelly ground, which is where it performs at its most convincing. Full sun, and drainage rather than fertility. Once the roots are down it needs very little water. For a windbreak or driveway row, space it for the mature crown and accept that the shade will stay filtered rather than deep, which is often the point on a paddock where you still want grass underneath.

The usual way this one fails is at planting. Buyers reach for the largest stock available, and an oversized tree with a circling root ball in a windy paddock either sits still for years or blows over the first time the ground softens. Smaller stock establishes faster and anchors better. If you do plant advanced sizes, tease the roots out properly, stake low and wide, and commit to watering through the first two summers.

The two peppermints, told apart on bark

The other peppermint in this range is narrow leaved black peppermint, and the two are easy to separate on bark. That species carries dark, closely fibrous bark and strongly scented foliage, while this one is smooth barked and paler in the trunk. For a smooth barked tableland tree with more happening on the trunk, inland scribbly gum carries the moth scribbles that give it its name. Pick White Peppermint when you want fine, mobile foliage and filtered shade on cold, poor, dry ground, and pick the black peppermint if you need a denser screen or the scent. Neither is a courtyard tree, whatever the fine foliage suggests, so both need the room of a full shade tree. Advanced sizes sit under advanced trees.

Dormant season work and restrained feeding

Keep the pruning to the dormant months. The structural work belongs in the first few years: one leader, competing stems shortened while small, and the canopy lifted over several seasons so the trunk keeps thickening. Do not over lift, because the drooping branchlets are the character of the tree. Once mature, prune only for deadwood and clearance. Feeding should be restrained, since this is a species from poor soils. One native feed early in each of its first two springs is plenty, and phosphorus rich products do more harm than good on this one. Mulch, keep grass off the base and check ties on staked trees so they do not cut in.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 300mm, at $149.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot it arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to Australian native trees for shade.