Snow In Summer Melaleuca linariifolia Snowstorm

Snowstorm is a compact selection of Melaleuca linariifolia that keeps the needle fine foliage and the dense white summer flowering the species is named for, on a bushy plant that stays low instead of building a trunk. In flower the whole plant goes over white, which is where the name snow in summer comes from, and bees work it heavily while it lasts. It is used as a low informal hedge, as mass planting under windows, and on verges where a tree would eventually reach the wires.

Easy ground, wet or dry, and the surprise on the truck

Full sun, moderate to fast growth, and a genuinely wide tolerance of soil: it takes dry spells once established, and it also takes ground that stays damp for a while after rain, which very few compact hedging plants will do. That combination makes it a sensible answer for a verge, a swale edge or the low corner of a garden where other shrubs have failed. Space plants about 60 to 75 cm apart for a low informal hedge. Frost is handled in most temperate gardens and it takes wind well, though for front row salt spray straight off the water a westringia is the safer call. The regular disappointment with this one has nothing to do with how it grows. Buyers order it expecting the paperbark tree and its peeling white trunk, and what comes off the truck is a shrub whose slim stems stay buried in foliage. Snowstorm will not develop that trunk at any age. If the bark is what you are after, plant the tree form and give it the room a tree needs. If you want the flowers and the fine foliage at hedge height, this is the one to order.

Compact selection against the paperbark trees

The other two paperbarks in this range are trees. Broad leaved paperbark is the large specimen for swales, basins and wet sites, carrying the thick white papery trunk people plant paperbarks for. Melaleuca viridiflora is a northern tree with broad leathery leaves for warm humid gardens. Snowstorm is the one to take when the space is a garden bed rather than a paddock or a park: hedging under window height, mass planting on a verge, or a low screen where you want white summer flower and no clearance argument in ten years. Anyone who has planted a paperbark tree in a courtyard and taken it out again eight years later understands why the compact form exists. It also sits in the screening range for low level work.

Cutting it straight after the flowers finish

Prune as soon as flowering ends and before the woody seed capsules set along the stems, taking an all over trim rather than a hard cut. Done every year that keeps the plant tight to the base; skipped for several seasons it goes woody and opens in the middle, and while melaleucas reshoot from old wood better than most natives, recovery is slow and uneven. Pruning late removes the growth that would have carried the next summer flush, so timing matters more than technique. A general slow release fertiliser in spring is plenty, with no phosphorus restriction. Shear across the whole plant rather than chasing individual stems; the fine foliage hides a cut line quickly.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 3 sizes, from 140mm up to 250mm, priced from $16.95 to $59.95 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 coastal planting.