Paperbark Melaleuca preissiana (Callistemon)

Modong is the stout paperbark of the Swan Coastal Plain, a Western Australian tree with a frame that leans and forks rather than running straight up. The trunk is the reason to plant it: thick, soft, creamy white bark laid down in papery sheets you can peel with a thumbnail. Fine grey green foliage carries creamy bottlebrush spikes through the warmer months, and honeyeaters work them hard. Its landscape job is shade and shelter on open ground that floods in winter and dries out hard by late summer.

Ground that suits a modong

This tree grows naturally on sandy flats that sit under water through winter and bake by February, so the seasonal waterlogging that kills most trees is simply its home ground. It wants full sun, tolerates sand, clay and limey soils, handles coastal wind, and needs little water once the roots are down. It is slower in cooler southern gardens. Plant it as a windbreak line, a dam or drainage edge, or a shade tree on a verge or paddock corner, and space trees along a shelterbelt so crowns can spread instead of crowding into a narrow row. Young trees are worth staking for a first year on an exposed verge, and a watering ring helps while the roots spread out.

The failure mode is space. This is a full sized tree with a broad, low forking crown and a strong root system, and it sheds bark and leaf litter steadily all year. Put it in a small back garden, over a pool, beside a driveway or on a narrow verge and you will be cutting it back off the house for the rest of its life. Give it open ground from the start.

Modong beside the smaller honey myrtle

The Callistemon in the name is a red herring, since this is a true melaleuca, and the contrast with its shrubby relative is worth understanding before you buy. Scarlet honey myrtle is an upright shrub for a sunny, sharply drained bed, chosen for red brush flowers and birds at eye level. Modong is chosen for trunk, canopy and shelter, and it will stand in ground that drowns the honey myrtle. If your wet site is eastern and coastal rather than western, swamp she-oak does similar work with much finer foliage. More options sit in the paperbark range.

Formative pruning and feeding a paperbark

Do the shaping early. Decide in the first few years whether you want a single trunk or a multi stemmed frame, remove competing leaders, and lift the lower branches gradually to the clearance you need, then leave the tree alone. Old paperbarks resent heavy cuts into thick wood. Do any tidying after the main flush of flowering so the birds get the brushes first, and water new trees deeply and less often, which drives roots down instead of out. Feed with a native fertiliser low in phosphorus each spring for the first few seasons while it establishes, mulch out towards the drip line, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk.

Choosing a size

This plant is supplied in one size, 30L, at $199.00 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 coastal planting.