Eucalyptus ‘Baby Blue’ for your Patio Pots and Containers with growing accessories & new 20 litre Air-Pot container
This October Special Offer Comprises:
1 x 5 litre Eucalyptus pulverulenta ‘Baby Blue’ multi-stemmed plant
1 x 60g Rootgrow
1 x 400g pack of High K Eucalyptus Fertiliser for April 2025
1 x 4 litre pack Ornamental Mini Pine Bark Pot Topper to keep weeds at bay
1 x 20 litre Air-Pot Container for potting on
1 x Baby Blue Owners Manual – how to grow a Baby Blue the easy way and keep it (and you) happy! 😎
FREE DELIVERY TO YOUR DOOR
WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU KEEP YOUR BABY BLUE IN THE AIR-POT CONTAINER SYSTEM: trust me – this is the best way to get good results! We grown Baby Blue in Air-Pot Containers and Smooth-walled pots – the latter always ends in tears. You can put the Air-Pot into a snazzy ornamental pot. In fact, we want you to do this for lots of good reasons.
Click here for more information on Successfully Growing Eucalyptus in Containers
All you need is a little fresh good-quality, peat-free potting compost to pot on into the next sized pot – minimum 20 litre pot
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To give the plant its full name: Eucalyptus pulverulenta ‘Baby Blue’
Buyer beware! I am sorry to say that there are several nefarious practices being exercised by the horticultural industry to con you into buying Eucalyptus gunnii in its cute round blue-leaved juvenile form and calling it Baby Blue. Being polite – this is patently misleading! E gunnii Baby Blue does not botanically exist. All these people are selling is Eucalyptus gunnii and calling it Baby Blue, and these trees will mature into a green, long-leaved tree at 80ft tall, if you don’t prune it.
E pulverulenta ‘Baby Blue’ never produces adult foliage – they remain cute, blue and roundish – kidney-bean shaped.
The correct form is the entirely different species Eucalyptus pulverulenta ‘Baby Blue‘ and it is a much more difficult to produce a good quality nursery plant than gunnii. Further more, E gunni does smell strikingly of eucalyptol, but is it NOT the same aroma as E. Baby Blue which has a sweet softness to the very strong fragrance. There are difficult aromatic oils at play in Baby Blue. Don’t be conned into buying E. gunnii Baby Blue – you are buying E gunnii – a wolf in sheep’s clothing! Apologies for the rant!
The Baby Blue Story: Very widely grown in Southern California, Mexico, Europe (Italy) and Australasia, E ‘Baby Blue’ has long been a favourite of the cut-foliage industry with the stems being highly sought-after as freshly picked or dried for floral art. Great for weddings, Christmas Wreaths and generally stuffing into vases.
It is a naturally dwarf species & can be grown as a clipped shrub. It rarely exceeding 3m in the UK, but can be trained over the years into a slightly taller standard.
With careful pruning, this can be trained into a nicely shaped layered bush with the most Amaaazzing foliage. Left to its own devices it can be described as having an ‘interesting architecture’.
This is a good variety for the smaller garden plot and could be grown in an air-pot on your terrace, but you need to follow the rules on growing Eucs. in pots. Click here for more information on Successfully Growing Eucalyptus in Containers
See the other Baby Blue October special offer for Growing in the Ground. For more information on how to use this fabulous cultivar in your garden – hop across to the tab above labelled ‘HOW TO USE’
Biometrics for Eucalyptus ‘Baby Blue’
Shoots ‘n Leaves: Very ornamental foliage. Young shoots are a soft violet with a white bloom. Juvenile foliage is an intense silvery blue. The young rounded leaves appear to ‘grasp’ the stem. Adult foliage is indistinguishable from the juvenile foliage. Smaller than straight wild type species E. pulverulenta. Rounded glaucous/blue aromatic leaves crowded on stems.
Bark: Blue when young. Smooth silvery grey, sometimes with olive, gold and russet tones.
Flowers: White fluffy flowers in profusion arranged in whorls around the stems, whilst still quite a young tree in mid Winter through to early Spring.
Leaf Aroma: Very strong typical fresh menthol Eucalyptus aroma.
Rate of Growth: Slow growing at less than 1m per year. Is quite slow to get established for a Eucalyptus – still fast for an evergreen shrub.
Height in maturity: If trained as a standard tree to grow upwards, it could reach approx. 3-4 m. Eucalyptus ‘Baby Blue’ responds well to regular annual pruning to keep it small either as a bushy shrub or shrub-onna-stick.
Hardiness: Tolerating down to around -10 °C to -14 °C mark, once mature. Hardiness in Eucalyptus is governed by provenance of seed, how it is grown (i.e. high nitrogen levels reduces cold tolerance), age of the tree – the older your tree, the hardier it will be. Younger Eucs are more susceptible to frost damage.
Lignotuber: It has one, which is a good thing! Eucalyptus ‘Baby Blue’ will regenerate off the lignotuber if cut down by man, beast or nature. It also produces many shoots from epicormic buds lying dormant beneath the bark higher up the tree; so Eucalyptus ‘Baby Blue’ will respond extremely well to both coppicing and pollarding practices.
Ecology:
Bees: All Eucalyptus produce flowers with nectar and pollen, but this species has particularly spectacular flowers making it a real draw for honey bees looking for winter foraging.
