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Eucalyptus gregsoniana – The Wolgan Snow Gum – 1 of wonderful Snow Gums

£99.00£337.00

A truly small Eucalyptus species that should reach around 6-7m (18 feet) over 15 years. Short term it will form a small tree of around 12 feet – an excellent choice for the smaller garden with normal to free-draining soils.

Why we like this variety:

  • A small, well-behaved and manageable Eucalyptus species for smaller garden or courtyard
  • Can be grown as a multi-stemmed shrub
  • Beautiful ornamental smooth silvery creamy bark
  • Magnificent flower clusters

Sizes Quoted are the approximate height band of the tree above compost level, ie. the height of the tree once planted into the ground. Please note: Eucalyptus are living plants and can grow almost all year round, occasionally we may supply you with a plant that is slightly taller than your order. If this might cause you problems, please include a note with your order.

Click the dropdown below to view our different sizes & prices.

REF: EUCGRE
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Description

Eucalyptus gregsoniana – The Wolgan Snow Gum – 1 of wonderful Snow Gums

A small tree or multi-branched, slender-stemmed mallee – unique and unusual for a snow gum.  A light, open airy habit, it is ideal for a sheltered garden or coastal region.  Although this species is genetically a mallee (multi-stemmed), it can be grown either with many stems or easily cultivated to maintain a single trunk.  Our nursery trees are mainly grown as single stemmed standards.  Occasionally we offer a few multi-stemmed specimens.

Shoots ‘n’ Leaves: New buds are a bright emerald green. Young stems are a delicious burgundy wine red, sometimes with shades of tangerine.

Juvenile foliage: Long slender olive green leaves.

Adult foliage: Glossy slender willow-like leaves of dark olive green, hang in attractive bunches from slender weeping crimson branchlets. Each leaf is approximately 70-100 mm long and 10-25 mm wide, with prominent parallel venation.

Bark:  Mature bark is silvery pewter grey, sometimes with sable or flecks of gold; peels beautifully in ribbons, to reveal smooth creamy white bark.

Flowers: Magnificent!   White fluffy and very profuse, attractive pollinating insects, butterflies and bees. Flower clusters are spherical, a little larger than a golf ball carried in large numbers – flowers May/June – very impressive.

Leaf Aroma: Typical Eucalyptus aroma.

Rate of Growth: Slow growing at 1m per year, responds well to having its head pruned at the correct time of year.

Height in maturity, if left unpruned:  Short term – around 12 feet.  It should not exceed 18-20 feet over a 15 year time-frame.

Hardiness:  Supposedly not as hardy as other snow gums, but the root-system should be generally good down to  -8°C, possibly down to -12°C, when mature.  Great species for the more southerly counties of England (draw a line across the country east from Gloucester), also the West coast of England and Scotland

OR  if you are a Garden Pioneer and like a challenge – a sheltered garden anywhere else – give it a go.  Strangely enough – it is growing well in the ground at Grafton Nursery!

It may be worth providing a newly planted young tree with a horticultural fleece tent for the very coldest times in a very cold winter, until mature and well established.

Tolerant of arid environments, poor stony dry soils once established. It is essential that your Euc. is given our recommended quantity of water for its first 2 growing seasons in your grounds, during its establishment phase before you abandon it to its fate.  The tree needs to establish a good root system before it can survive in dry, challenging conditions.

Additional information

Weight 3 kg
Dimensions 150 × 50 × 50 cm
Size

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Planting Position and Soil

Eucalyptus gregsoniana – The Wolgan Snow Gum

Requirements:

  • Sunny aspect, open sky above and no shade from overhanging or neighbouring trees or buildings.
  • Happy in a wide range of soil types, but performs best on those which are acid to neutral.
  • Does not like winter wet and very boggy ground.
  • Tolerant of arid environments, poor stony dry soils once established. It is essential that your Euc. is given our recommended quantity of water for its first 2 growing seasons in your grounds, during its establishment phase before you abandon it to its fate.  The tree needs to establish a good root system before it can survive in dry, challenging conditions.
  • Frost hardy and good in coastal locations, but will benefit from some shelter and not getting battered by strong winds inland.

 

Recommendations:

  • For the best results, follow our planting and aftercare watering instructions, issued with every order; they can also be found under the Help and Advice tab on this website.
  • Improve poor soils with our planting kit, at the time of planting.
  • To encourage deep rooting and therefore good stability, prepare a deep planting pit as per our instructions.
  • Ensure there is no competition from weeds or grass around the base of the young tree as this will seriously cramp its style and slow down establishment. Our research has found that grass around the trunks of newly planted Eucalypts can completely stop them from growing and may lead to failure.
  • 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.

How to Use

Eucalyptus gregsoniana – The Wolgan Snow Gum

This species is recommended as a Specimen Tree for the wider landscape, arboretum collection and also for the small/medium/larger garden.

It can also be grown as shrub-on-a-stick clipped standard: this is an opportunity to grow a Eucalyptus in a confined space and control its overall size. You can produce a small tree on a trunk with a height of anywhere between 2.4m (8ft) and 4m (12ft)

How to grow a Standard Specimen Tree:

Planting the tree and running away is an option, but it won’t necessarily give you the best results. We recommend that you carry out some pruning about twice a year.

  • Maintain a short bamboo cane to support the lower 1.2-1.5m of trunk whilst it is forming a head. Important – the cane must always be shorter than the top of the tree and use a triangular cane cap to protect the trunk.
  • Use a short ground stake (600mm tall above ground) to prevent root rock during establishment; don’t bang it through the root ball!
  • Secure the tree to the stake using soft hessian ribbon tree tie; not a rubber tree belt, which will saw your tree in half.
  • No grass, no weeds and a thick bark chip mulch, to a depth of 150 mm (6 inches) are essential to assist with good establishment. Our trials have demonstrated that grass around the trunk of Eucalyptus prevent the trees from quickly establishing and can completely stop them from growing.

Inspect your tree every March 18th (National Eucalyptus Day) and decide how much pruning you need to do.

  • Trim back the head sometime between 18th March and 1st April – dry, non-snowy/frosty weather permitting.
  • Keep it balanced and remove up to 4 to 6 inches (100-150mm) all over; remove more if it produced a great deal of growth late last summer.
  • During 1st week of June, reduce all soft new spring growth by at least 50% and up to 90%, to encourage bushiness.
  • With the passage of time, clean out any brittle old branches in the middle of the head to keep it open and airy.
  • Do not carry out any pruning between the end of July and the end of February.

 

Growing in a container: We often get asked how to grow E gregsoniana in a pot.

  • It can be done, but you need to continue to grow it in an Air-pot container (see our Blog Post on growing in Containers) and this needs to be placed inside a very heavy ornamental pot to prevent your standard from being blown over in a high wind.
  • Pot on gradually; don’t be tempted to over-pot a Wolgan Snow Gum in the first year.
  • A 3 litre can be put into a 12 litre pot and from there into a 45 litre pot.
  • A 5 litre young standard can be potted on into a 20 litre pot and from there into a 45 litre container or larger as required.
  • Pot on between March and June, when watering becomes difficult, lots of roots are coming out of the air-pot bottom and the tree does not appear to be happy.
  • Never, ever let the compost dry out during the growing season.
  • Keep the compost just moist through the winter
  • Feed Spring and Summer with Chempak Number 4, high potassium fertiliser to keep the wood sturdy.

Nursery Notes and Trivia

Winter 2022 going into Spring 2023

Good stocks of 5 litre, 12 litre and 20 litre standards with a few tremendous specimens in 30 litre airpots

Botanical Name: Eucalyptus gregsoniana (syn. E. pauciflora subsp. ‘Nana’)

MYRTACEÆ; Myrtle Family

Common Name: The Wolgan Snow Gum, Mallee Snow Gum

Status: Evergreen Tree

Origin: The Blue Mountains, Budawang Range and South of Braidwood in south-eastern New South Wales

Our Seed Source: Alpine region of New South Wales

E. gregsoniana has a lignotuber at the base of the trunk. This ‘body’, full of dormant vegetative buds, is the tree’s aid to survival, assisting regeneration after a crisis event, such as a fire, a hard winter or excessive grazing (by an animal with a strong constitution and no taste buds!). The lignotuber is activated by the removal or death of the top part of the plant, whereupon it produces a mass of vigorous new shoots, which grow up to form the new tree.

Meaning of the name:

Part of the pauciflora group of Eucalypts, E. gregsoniana is often classified as E. pauciflora ssp. Nana
The native habitat of  E. gregsoniana is high altitude locations, where it can be seen growing in alpine mallee groups amongst other shrubs; along ridges, on hills and flat land with free-draining soil.

Named gregsoniana  after Eucalyptus enthusiasts, the Gregsons, a father and son from Mount Wilson, NSW.  Back in 2020, we had the privilege of supplying their descendants with some Wolgan Snow Gum  trees.

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