Screw Pine Pandanus unicornutus

Pandanus unicornutus is rarely seen in Australian landscapes and gets labelled as anything else in the genus, usually coastal tectorius or the indoor friendly baptistii. It carries the architecture that makes screw pines worth planting: long strap leaves arranged in tight spirals so each crown reads as a green pinwheel, on branching stems lifted clear of the ground by a widening skirt of stilt roots. The epithet means one horned. Offered here as a single mature specimen, it is a crane and place feature rather than a planting you repeat.

Rare in the trade, offered at scale

Conditions are the standard screw pine set: full sun, warmth, free draining ground and no frost, with low to moderate water once the roots move out of the root ball. Growth is slow, which is the reason specimens this size exist at all, and it is also why getting the installation right matters more here than with a plant you could replace next season. The failure mode for a specimen of this weight is the hole. Dropped into a compacted subsoil pocket on a new build site, the excavation behaves like a bucket, water sits around the base after every storm, and the plant declines from the roots up over the following year. Excavate wide rather than deep, break up the sides and the floor of the hole, backfill with a free draining mix rather than imported topsoil, and set the root ball slightly proud of the finished level. Guy it until the stilt roots take hold, and keep foot traffic and machinery off the root zone while it settles.

One specimen or a matching run

If you want screw pines in numbers, this is the wrong one to start with. Pandanus pedunculatus runs through a full ladder of container sizes and is the species to specify when a foreshore or a resort frontage needs a dozen plants that match each other. Pandanus utilis Red Edge is the pick when leaf colour is doing the work, with blue green blades edged in red. Choose unicornutus when the brief is one uncommon plant, already at scale, set where people walk around it and read the stilt roots close up. Specify it into a position that can take a crane and give the root run permanent clearance. Specimens at that scale are grouped in super advanced trees.

Handling, feeding and settling in

Handling comes before pruning: the margins and midrib undersides carry fine prickles, so gloves and sleeves go on before you touch it. Old leaves hold on the stem and need cutting off flush, once or twice a year, in the warm months. Leave the growing points alone. Hold off feeding until new leaves show that the plant has re-rooted, then work a slow release product over the root zone rather than against the stems, and add trace elements if the foliage pales between the veins. A large plant that has just been set will drop some older foliage while it re-roots, which is normal and not a reason to feed harder.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 1000L, at $13209.00 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 when to plant in Australia.