Eucalyptus nitens
Common Names: Shining Gum, Silvertop, Ribbon Gum (Victoria, New South Wales)
Description, habit, uses and attributes: A fast growing species, quickly making a tall tree with a very straight trunk and good form.
Once established, E. nitens has a reputation for being wind-firm, but young trees can be initially unstable.
With their vigorous growth, they quickly produce a large canopy of leaves, which presents a large wind sail.
Young trees may need either a sheltered start or a remote stake to prevent them from being overthrown in gale force winds, until such time as they are properly rooted down in the ground. It is essential to plant air-root-pruned stock for a safe and stable root-system. Avoid stock that has been raised in smooth-walled pots because they have a compromised root-ball which will never recover from this damage. Air-Pot grown stock has a radial root-system which is eminently more stable when planted.
Lignotuber: Eucalyptus nitens is one of the Eucalyptus that lacks a lignotuber, but regenerates when coppiced not too low down at the base of the tree, by sending out epicormic shoots from around the base of the trunk. The ability to do this declines with age and certainly drops of after 10 years; so a 10 year old stump may not throw many new shoots for re-growing.
How to use in the landscape and/or garden:
As a full-sized specimen tree for the wider landscape: best grown in parkland, arboretum or farmland, due to its rapid growth and ability to produce a very large tree.
Eucalyptus nitens grows into a wind-firm tree and thrives in coastal districts. It’s a tree with good form, very straight tall trunk with nice bark detail and shining new foliage.
Cut Foliage: Eucalyptus nitens is increasingly being used as cut foliage. Its fast and productive and the juvenile foliage is highly aromatic.
Lumber or Firewood Production: Grown under the right conditions, Eucalyptus nitens will very quickly produce a good crop of firewood for your log-burner. Your first crop could be taken at year 5 from planting. Eucalyptus nitens produces excellent clean burning fire wood and the smaller logs (thinnings of around 4-5 inches in diameter) season relatively quickly. As a species it is not known to be eaten by deer, rabbits etc. and should not need protective guards.
Eucalyptus nitens is often selected for firewood production, because of its rapid speed of growth and exceptionally high yield at around 470 kg/m3. However, its lack of hardiness below -14 Celsius would indicate that planting is best restricted to maritime climates such as within 5-6 miles of the cold coastline of northern/eastern England and within 10-12 miles of the west and south coasts of the UK.
Eucalyptus nitens lack of a lignotuber means that it may not coppice reliably after 10 years. However, it may be worth growing E. nitens to establish a very quick crop of logs, whilst your other Eucalyptus firewood species are getting established. It could then be clear felled to give the remaining Eucalyptus species room to expand.
Rural/Agricultural: Can be used as a shelterbelt plant with firewood logs being made from the thinnings after about 4-5 years of growth.
Ecology: Eucalyptus nitens produces a good honey flow for bees
Commercially: in many locations of the temperate world, E. nitens is a very economically important crop; mainly grown for wood pulp – to make paper and paper products. It is being increasingly planted in the U.K. as a biomass crop. It is also grown extensively in Victoria and southern New South Wales (Australia) and is a popular plantation species in Tasmania. The timber produced is used for general building construction, flooring, joinery, panelling, furniture and pulp.
Shoots ‘n Leaves: Young shoots of mature trees are very striking and shiny. Young stems are a amazing beetroot red colour and square in cross section.
Juvenile foliage: glaucous (covered in white wax), ovate to lanceolate large leaves, up to 11 cm long (4 ¼ inches) and 5.5 cm wide (2 ¼ inches) Strong french blue in colour with some burgundy tints, the very young leaves are not dissimilar to E. neglecta, but very quickly become arrow shaped. Immature foliage is present on the maturing tree for a considerable time.
Adult foliage: fabulous glossy, shiny olive green foliage. Very long and elegant; narrow, slightly curved (lanceolate to falcate). Can be up to 30 cm (1 foot) long and only 4 cm (1 ½ inches) wide.
Bark: The first metre of trunk can be rough pewter grey bark and then the smooth trunk rises above this; predominantly soft pale grey with white, some mint, cream and coffee brown. The bark sheds annually in strips to reveal the silvery white and mint coloured new bark beneath.
Flowers: white, in clusters of 7
Leaf Aroma: very strong – typical aromatic Eucalyptus
Rate of Growth: very fast – give it space
Height in maturity, if left unpruned: Very quick off the starting block with rapid growth in its first couple of years. Eucalyptus nitens is a very fast tall tree, suited to very large parkland and open spaces – so please ensure it has room to grow.
Height if unpruned – around 70m in its native habitat, but probably not in the UK. Best coppiced every 5-8 years to keep it under control.
Hardiness: -9 to -14°C Young trees are more susceptible to extreme cold and most will succumb in their first winter after planting if the temperature falls to -12°C or below. Older trees will be hardier tolerating down to -14°C
Planting Position and Soil Preference: Full sun in ordinary garden soil, even happy in shallow thin soils over chalk, but growth is marginally slower as a result of this challenging soil type. It grows very well for us at Grafton Nursery in our horrible alkaline yellow boggy clay soil, but only when mound planted. We would not recommend it for general planting in boggy ground. In southern New Zealand, E. nitens is successfully grown in coastal districts.
Make life easier for you and your new tree: Plant with the mycorrhizal fungi product Rootgrow. Eucalyptus in particular have a special, lifelong relationship with their root fungi, the latter of which actively transport food and water directly into the tree roots, helping your new Euc establish faster and more efficiently, particularly in challenging types of soil.
Meaning of the name: Eucalyptus nitens: Latin nitens, shining, from the shining leaves, flower buds, fruit and bark.
General pruning: responds well to pollarding, when done at the right time of year. Unless you are growing for cut foliage, please refrain from voluntarily electing to prune your Eucalyptus from August through to February; it can kill it.
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Click here for further advice on pruning can be found in our Guidance Notes
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Hardiness: Good hardiness rating, root-system should be happy down to around -12 to -14°C, once mature and established in a stress-free environment.
Hardiness in Eucalyptus is governed by
- provenance of seed (all our seed is sourced from frosty or cold locations)
- how it is grown (i.e. high nitrogen levels reduces cold tolerance),
- the age of the tree – the older your tree, the hardier it will be. Younger Eucs are more susceptible to frost damage.
- how long it has been planted in the ground. The deeper you can encourage the rooting by digging a deep planting pit at the time of installation, the quicker your tree will establish and you will increase its ability to survive cold winters. See our planting notes for more details.
Click here to see our Guidance Notes on how to increase the winter hardiness of your Eucalyptus, and keep it happy!
