It’s cold here in winter, and hot and dry in summer. It reminded me of the Northern Tablelands of NSW, where I lived for two years in the mid 70s while teaching at Tenterfield High School. And Mt Alexander and the stone houses around here are made of a kind of granite. Your Australian geography will tell you that the tablelands on the border of NSW and Queensland is also known as “The Granite Belt”. One of my favourite trees, Eucalyptus scoparia, also known as Wallangarra White Gum, comes from that area, and so it was that the first tree I planted here, in 2016, at a bad time of year for tree planting (December) was an E. scoparia.
The reason I like E scoparia is not on account of its flowers, which are small, pale and hard to even see on the tree – but due to its elegant form. Sinewy white trunk, with long, thin, vertically hanging leaves looking coppery reddish when young, it’s just so pretty to look at. Unfortunately, like many eucalypts, it seems to cross pollinate with other robust trees nearby, and those specimens grow very fast and tall, and not so sinewy… well, they’re still pretty, and if you want a fast growing tree that laughs at cold damp winters, rocky ground and will like it even more if it gets extra water… well…
This first scoparia was planted in what I call ‘The Driveway Triangle’. It seemed to do quite well until attacked by borers of some kind in its second year. Because of this, its main trunk has not grown straight, since I cut off the affected branch, and drenched the cut branch with a dessicant powder which insects don’t survive too well.. it seems to have survived, and the borers have not returned.
The second E. scoparia I planted was in what I call the ‘south paddock’, in a patch half way down the hill, where large granite boulders sit at the surface, and after a large patch of weed plums were removed. This one loved its spot and grew very fast and looked like a ‘true’ scoparia. This second scoparia was planted in October 2017.
The third E. scoparia planted at Warrawing was a second choice after one of the E. synandras failed in this spot, and I wanted another light-leaved, non-dense canopy tree in a set of three, about half way down what I call the “front ex-weed patch”. This slope had been cleared of a large patch of weed plums (sloe plums), and due to it being a slope, I thought should be well-drained, as well as it being aligned north-south. The soil here is deeper and always seems to be well-watered, compared to other sites on the property. This third E. scoparia seems to have been cross pollinated with another eucalypt, since it has grown faster than any of the other eucalypts, its trunk has not yet turned white, and the leaves are not as long and narrow as other scoparias I have admired.
The next scoparia I planted was in the front “pepper tree patch”. This one was bought in a tube from McDonalds nursery in Bendigo, and planted in August 2020.
E scoparia number 5 was planted in the “dam paddock”, near to the drain line which sometimes feeds the dam on the surface – but only when the soil becomes so saturated that it actually does flow – this was so that the tree would be able to access any excess water on that site. This one was planted in a hurry, in September 2020 – since it had been bought in a pot and we were about to go away for a few weeks.
This one really likes it here, and it is difficult to phtograph the whole tree.
The sixth scoparia was planted in the “new back patch”, in a sight line from the house, to act as one of the screen plants in preparation for the advent of the garden shed and water tank in the leased paddock behind us on the hill. The New Back Patch was originally going to be left fairly bare, since the patch forms a type of mound, on either side of which any water flows, and also because the view of the hills and Mt Alexander is something I like to see every day. This area is very dry, so I needed to install a set of watering pipes which I can connect to hoses in summer. This one was planted in August 2021, and one year on, seems to have taken quite well, with occasional watering last summer.
Further description of E. scoparia can be found on the Euclid site.