Illawarra Plum Podocarpus elatus

Illawarra plum is a rainforest conifer from the coastal ranges of New South Wales and Queensland, dense and furnished to the ground in good light, with narrow leathery leaves so dark they look almost black behind the bronze-green new flush. The feature that sets it apart in this range is edible: female trees carry a swollen purple-black fruit stalk below the seed, sweet and resinous, long used in native food cooking. In a large garden it earns its place as a windbreak on an exposed boundary, a clipped screen along a fence line, or a feature specimen in a big pot.

Growing Illawarra plum on the east coast

Full sun to part shade, which is unusual among the conifers here and makes it the answer for a screen that has to run along a shaded fence or under high canopy. It takes humidity, coastal wind, heavy soil and root competition better than any cypress or thuja, needs little water once established, and holds its density in shade instead of thinning out from the bottom. For a hedge, space plants around 750mm to 1m apart depending on how fast you want the line to close, and prepare the whole trench rather than digging a row of individual holes.

The one real failure mode is frost on young stock. Nursery-grown plants come out soft, and a hard frost through the first winter or two burns the new growth and can kill the leader outright. In Canberra, on the tablelands or in a cold Victorian valley, either give it a sheltered aspect with overhead protection for the first couple of winters or choose something else. Established trees are considerably tougher than young ones.

Illawarra plum against the formal conifers

The obvious comparison is Arborvitae - Thuja occidentalis smaragd. Smaragd gives you a narrow self-shaping green cone with almost no work, but it wants cool air, full sun and a root zone that never dries out. Podocarpus is the humid-climate screen: it clips into a flat formal face, it will reshoot from older wood if you need to bring an overgrown hedge back into line, and it tolerates shade and salt. Take the thuja for a cool temperate accent pair, the podocarpus for a hedge that has to earn its keep on the east coast, or for a fruiting specimen in a native food garden. Hedges holds the rest of the screening range.

Clipping and feeding a podocarpus hedge

Clip in the warmer months, from mid spring through to early autumn, so cuts callus over before cold weather arrives. Light shearing two or three times a season keeps a formal face; a neglected hedge can be cut well back into older wood and will push new shoots, which is a genuine advantage over the junipers and cypress in this range. Feed after each hard cut and again in early spring with a balanced slow-release fertiliser, water it in properly, and keep mulch topped up over the surface roots. Fruiting plants appreciate steadier moisture through summer.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 10 sizes, from 75mm up to 100L, priced from $16.95 to $719.00 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 fast growing screening plants.