Brush Cherry Syzygium australe Hinterland Gold (Eugenia australis)

The name points at the flush. New growth on Hinterland Gold breaks a buttery yellow gold rather than red or bronze, then hardens down to deep green, so a hedge on a regular cycle carries pale tips over a dark body through most of the growing season. The leaf is small and set closely along the stem, and that spacing is what lets it hold a genuinely tight shear line instead of the shaggy outline a larger leaved lilly pilly leaves you with. It is the selection to reach for when the hedge is a piece of architecture: a squared face along a path, a low block around a lawn, a clipped screen against a rendered wall, or topiary.

Siting a formal hedge

Hinterland Gold suits the coastal and near coastal belt from south east Queensland through New South Wales and the ACT into Victoria, plus gardens around Adelaide and through the south west of Western Australia. The gold reads brighter in an open position and goes greener and softer in shade, so put a formal run where it gets sun for most of the day. Set it out on a string line and take the time to get the spacing even at 750mm to 1 metre, because a formal face shows every wobble in the row for the life of the hedge, and a plant set 200mm out of line cannot be trimmed back into place without cutting a hollow into the face.

What kills these hedges is a trench that becomes a sump

Brush cherry will not sit in wet ground, and the usual way it ends up there is a planting trench dug through clay and backfilled with bagged potting mix. Water runs into the loose fill, cannot escape through the clay walls, and sits around the collar for days after heavy rain. Plants die out one at a time across a couple of wet seasons, and a gap in the middle of a formal hedge takes years to close because the neighbouring plants have already claimed the space above it. Rip or improve the whole planting strip rather than digging isolated holes, plant on a low mound with the top of the root ball proud of the surrounding soil, and cover the difference with mulch rather than more soil.

Colour and leaf size split this range

Colour and leaf size separate this range. Big Red flushes deep red on a coarser, bolder frame and forgives a rougher cut. Resilience is the upright one to reach for when a screen simply has to clear fence height. Hinterland Gold is the fine textured, formal option of the three, and it repays the extra trimming a crisp face demands. If you want seasonal colour without committing to four cuts a year, Big Red is the easier plant to live with. Related screens sit in privacy screening.

How often it wants cutting

A formal face wants cutting whenever a flush has just hardened, which through the warm months usually means a pass every couple of months, while an informal screen holds its shape on two cuts a year. Taper off as growth slows into winter so soft tips are not left exposed through the cold. Feed as growth starts in spring and once more before Christmas with a native safe controlled release product, watered in well. A plant kept in steady growth pushes flushes that harden quickly, and the less time a hedge spends carrying soft leaves the less there is for psyllid to work on.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 8 sizes, from 140mm up to 200L, priced from $16.95 to $999.00 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 choosing a lilly pilly.