Pink Trumpet Tree Tabebuia rosea

Warm coastal Queensland and the northern rivers are the working range for Tabebuia rosea, a deciduous tree that builds a broad, high, spreading crown on a clean pale trunk. It strips its leaves, then covers bare branches in trusses of pink to mauve trumpets with a paler throat, an entirely different effect from the golden species it gets confused with. Through the warm months the palmate leaves, each held on a long stalk, cast light dappled shade over a driveway, a street verge or an open lawn.

How far south it will go, and what stops it

Heat suits it, full sun is essential, and once the roots are down it gets by on low water. It grows at a moderate rate into a genuinely big tree, so give it deep free-draining soil and room for a full crown rather than squeezing it against a boundary. Cold is the limit and the failure mode. Push it much below the northern rivers and cold, wet winters slow it to a crawl, the flowering thins out, and young plants are damaged outright by frost, which is why so many southern plantings sit stunted for years and are eventually removed. If your winters are cool and damp, this is the wrong tree and no amount of feeding will change that. Where the climate is right, it takes coastal exposure and salt-laden wind reasonably well, and it copes with a long dry season once the roots have gone down. Set it in deep soil rather than filled ground over rubble, since a restricted root run shows as a thin crown and poor flowering. Keep it away from pool decks and paved edges, because fallen flowers build into a slippery pink mat that has to be swept.

Rosea, palmerii or a poinciana for a big warm garden

Tabebuia palmerii is the same idea at smaller scale, deeper in colour and more upright, and it is the sensible choice for a suburban block or a narrow verge. Rosea earns its place where there is room for the crown to spread and the winter display can be seen from a distance. Poinciana is the other big subtropical flowering tree here, but it works the opposite way round: scarlet and orange in early summer with the leaves coming, a flat umbrella of ferny foliage, and roots that will lift a driveway. Take rosea for late winter colour, poinciana for summer shade on open lawn, and palmerii if the space is anything less than generous. Rosea also suits a street planting, where poinciana's roots rule it out. See the rest of the flowering trees for the full comparison.

Shaping a young tree, and going easy on nitrogen

Prune once the flowering has finished and the new leaves are pushing, which gives the tree the whole warm season to recover. Concentrate on the early years: pick a leader, space the scaffold limbs so they do not crowd, and lift the canopy gradually to the clearance you need over a path or driveway. Avoid large cuts into old wood on an established tree. Feed in spring with a controlled release fertiliser and keep nitrogen modest, since a well fed tree in rich soil puts its energy into leaf. Mulch out under the canopy and keep it clear of the trunk.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 45L up to 400L, priced from $289.00 to $2639.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Every size here is established stock rather than a starter plant, so this line is intended for immediate effect rather than for growing on. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to choosing a tree for a small backyard.