Broad Leaved Paperbark Melaleuca quinquenervia

Broad leaved paperbark is one of the few trees of its size that will stand in ground going under water after heavy rain. It grows naturally in coastal swamps and creek flats, tolerates periodic flooding and brackish groundwater, and holds an upright open crown above a trunk wrapped in thick white to buff bark that peels in soft papery sheets. Cream bottlebrush flowers come in flushes and pull in honeyeaters and flying foxes. It is a standard specification for swales, detention basins and wet low corners.

Wet ground is the point, so the question is where you put it

The natural range runs from the New South Wales coast up through Queensland and into the tropics, and it grows through warm humid summers without complaint. Full sun, and low to moderate water once settled: on a wet site it needs none, and on ordinary garden soil it grows well provided the first years are not bone dry. Growth is moderate to fast, salt wind is handled, and it stands in the sort of seasonally waterlogged ground that would kill most natives outright, which is exactly why it gets specified. The mistake with this tree is scale and placement, not culture. It is a large tree with a wide, hungry surface root system, and planted a few metres from a slab, a driveway or a stormwater line in a suburban yard it causes damage nobody budgeted for. It also sets seed freely, so keep it well away from remnant wetland outside its home range. Flowering triggers hay fever in some people, worth remembering before you site one outside a bedroom window. Hard frost in cold inland districts will check it, so keep it to coastal, warm temperate and subtropical gardens.

Big paperbark, tropical paperbark, or the compact one

All three paperbarks here take damp ground, and they part company on size and climate. Melaleuca viridiflora carries much broader leathery leaves and is a northern plant, dependable in Queensland and warm coastal New South Wales but not in a cold inland garden, so quinquenervia is the safer choice across a wider spread of the country. Snowstorm is a compact shrub with none of the trunk or the bark, for gardens with no room for a tree. Take quinquenervia when you want the papery trunk, real canopy and a tree that copes with a site that floods. On a wet site with room, this is the default; on a wet corner the size of a courtyard, Snowstorm does related work at shrub scale. The paperbark range holds the rest.

Formative pruning and a tree that asks for nothing

Prune for form while the tree is young, selecting a leader and lifting the lower limbs over several seasons to get clearance for mowing or traffic. Melaleucas reshoot from older wood more willingly than most Australian natives, so a mature tree can be reduced or reshaped if a limb becomes a problem, though it is better not to need to. Fertiliser is rarely required, and unlike the banksias and grevilleas in this range there is no phosphorus restriction. Water through the first two summers on a dry site, then leave it alone. Expect to rake bark and leaf litter off paths, gutters and pool surrounds, since the tree sheds steadily rather than all at once.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 9 sizes, from 200mm up to 300L, priced from $29.95 to $1749.00 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 coastal planting.