Creeping Boobialla Myoporum parvifolium Broad Leaf

The Broad Leaf selection of creeping boobialla carries wider, fleshier, brighter green leaves than the fine and purple forms, and at any distance that difference matters: the mat reads as a solid sheet of green rather than a fine texture. Habit is the same flat runner, laying stems down and rooting as it goes, so it covers rather than mounds. White star flowers with faint purple speckling appear through the warm months. It is the form landscapers specify on road verges, retaining wall tops and hot embankments.

Planting a bank so it closes over

Full sun, a free-draining site and very little water once established. Set plants about a metre apart on a batter and they will meet inside a season or two, growing quickly enough that weed control only really matters for the first year. Water through the first summer while the roots take hold, then back off, because an established mat resents being kept damp. Plant slightly high with the crown proud of the surrounding soil, and pull the mulch back from the stem base rather than burying it. The failure mode here is drainage, and it shows up as patches. In heavy clay, or under sprinklers running through a humid summer, the crown rots and a hole opens in the mat that widens outwards over the following weeks, and filling it means replanting rather than waiting. Where the soil is clay, either mound the planting line or choose something else. In shade the plant stretches, thins and flowers poorly, so this is an open-position groundcover. Treat it as light traffic at most, since the fleshy stems break where they are walked on and will not knit back over the line.

Broad Leaf, Fine Leaf or Purpurea

Texture is the whole decision. Broad Leaf gives the coarsest leaf and the most solid green cover of the three, which suits large areas read from a car or across a carpark. Fine Leaf is narrower and darker, better close to a path where the detail is seen at walking pace, and it copes rather better with still humid air. Purpurea is the one to use when you want bronze-purple against concrete or pale mulch. Pick Broad Leaf when the brief is cover, quickly, over a large area. None of the three takes foot traffic, so if people will cut across the planting, pave a line through it before you plant rather than after. All three sit in low maintenance.

Tip pruning on a cycle

Tip prune every year or two, shearing across the surface of the mat in early spring to force new shoots from lower down. Old plants that have never been cut go woody and open through the middle, and cutting hard into that bare wood at that stage rarely produces a decent recovery, so start the habit while the planting is young. Feed sparingly, with a light spring application of a low-phosphorus native blend on poor soil and nothing at all on reasonable ground. Watch for snails on soft new runners in spring, and lift any stems that have run out onto paving.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 125mm up to 200mm, priced from $16.95 to $29.95 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.