Eucalyptus debeuzevillei – the Amazing Jounama Snow Gum – The No. 1 For Hardiness

How to use in the landscape and/or garden: How to grow or train it to get the best out of it

The hardiest of all Eucalyptus once established. Fabulous colourful tactile bark, beautiful French-blue juvenile foliage, nice table manners. Great Specimen Tree or multi-stem tree for the wider landscape, arboretum collection or avenue planting and for the smaller, medium and larger garden.

Commercially: a good choice for open public spaces, parks, business parks, university campus

Growing a full-sized standard: planting the tree and running away is an option, but it won’t necessarily give you the best results.

We suggest you maintain a leading shoot and tip prune the lateral shoots to encourage bushiness.  Keep all the sides shoots, but prune to control, as they are building up the strength of the main trunk.

• To grow a large specimen, leave the tree to grow up naturally thereafter.
• For a small tree, tip prune the leader when it reaches 1.2m, thereafter let the head develop. Then prune the tree every March 18^th and end of May to keep your tree small and bushy.

For more, see our guidance notes for growing specimen Eucalyptus in our Help and Advice section and our Pruning Guidance Notes in our Blogs.

For monthly emails on how and when to prune and care for your Eucalyptus, sign up to our Gumnut Club and we’ll send you the Bush Telegraph – it’s totally free and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Growing shrub-on-a-stick clipped standard: this is an opportunity to grow a Eucalyptus in a confined space like a courtyard and also 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). Prune back growth every March 18^th or thereabouts and tip prune the annual growth back by up to 90% at the end of May. Light tip pruning can be done again during July, but no later. Don’t prune from August through to February.

Growing a multi-stemmed bush or tree.  Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei will respond to coppicing and readily produces a multi-stemmed specimen, BUT ONLY once it has attained a trunk of some 125 mm in diameter. However, it is a snow gum and they generally do not enjoy regular, aggressive pruning practices such as pollarding and coppicing – so perhaps only every 5 years or so.  By all means light prune it annually.

Coppicing and Pollarding – Why would you want to do this?

To create:

• a tree with more body or ‘mass’ of branches and foliage for screening purposes. Once grown back up to its full potential, it will now have several main trunks
• an attractive multi-stemmed architectural tree, especially if it has exceptional bark
• to control height, whereby your Euc can be usefully maintained anywhere between 2.4m (8ft) and 7m (20ft), but genetically it will want to grow taller if ignored.

REMEMBER: No grass, no weeds and a thick, boring (no frills) bark chip mulch, to a depth of 150 mm (6 inches) are essential to assist with good establishment. Our research trials have demonstrated that grass around the trunk of Eucalyptus prevent the trees from quickly establishing and can completely stop them from growing.

Pot Culture outdoors:  Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei  is an excellent choice and can be successfully grown as a multi-stemmed shrub in a container provided you are prepared to pot on at the recommended intervals and to supply it with sufficient water and food during the growing season.

Tip: prune back new spring growth on every shoot by 50% during the 1st week in June to keep a compact bushy habit. More serious pruning can be done earlier in March (National Eucalyptus Day is March 18th).

Always keep pot-grown Eucalyptus in the air-pot container system for healthy and happy trees.😊  They do not thrive in smooth-walled containers ☹

For Guidance Notes on how to successfully grow Eucs in pots, visit our Blog entitled ‘How to grow a Eucalyptus in a pot and keep it alive!’

Hedge-Screens:  Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei is a good choice for a hedge-screen as it readily produces sub-lateral shoots – i.e. branches off the side-branches and finds no problem in becoming bushy.  This is unusual for most Eucs.

Always prune your hedge-screen March 18^th and maintain a profile like a capital ‘A’.  That is broad bottom, narrow shoulders and a flat head.  This allows light to all parts of the hedge and keeps it bushy.  If you let your hedge develop into the shape of a capital ‘V’, its bottom will open up…not a great look!

Floral Art:  Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei is not on our ‘Cut foliage’ list, but I see no reason why you could not use the odd branch in a vase of flowers. Its large juvenile leavess look great with Paeony, Hydrangea and Dahlias

Firewood Production:  Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei  is not on our selected species list for Biomass or Firewood.  Snow gums are too slow growing to make them viable for cropping. However, their wood does burn well – it’s very dense..

Do give us a call on our nursery mobile 07307 413 052 if you would like to discuss growing firewood with one of our consultants

Rural/Agricultural:

• Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei is extremely tough and will survive well in exposed conditions, provided it is planted deep, short cross stake and pruned to allow deep root establishment in its formative years. Root rock must be avoided at all costs. Planted as a screen for sheltering livestock either as single species or a mixed plantation is an option for free draining soils.

Ecology:

• All Eucalyptus produce flowers with nectar and pollen, but this species has particularly spectacular flowers making it a real draw for honey bees and other pollinators.
• Habitat creation and Game Cover: this species lends itself to providing good trouble-free habitat creation for wildlife and game cover, when planted in groups, but see notes above under ‘agricultural use’. Birds enjoy roosting in Eucalyptus trees and Pheasants like rootling around underneath them.
• Chickens: snow gums are light on eucalyptol – the highly aromatic oil. They don’t need it as they live high up in the cold mountains where flying biting bugs are less prevalent. So Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei is not as good as other species for chicken bedding. 

Environmental:

• Growing on the Coast Snow gums have extra-thick leaf cuticles, which make them extremely tolerant of cold exposed conditions and salt laden winds, once mature in the ground. To make this work, we recommend that:

1. you plant a smaller specimen (5 litre, around 1m-1.2m tall),
2. encourage fast establishment in a deeply prepared planting pit (follow our planting advice), to encourage deep rooting to grow an upright, stable tree.

• Staking will be required.

1. Newly planted trees will very likely require a wind break shelter of netlon netting, sail cloth or paraweb for their first winter in the ground with you.
2. Zero grass or weeds during the period of establishment is non-negotiable!

• Shelter Belts and Windbreaks Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei can be grown to form a good evergreen windbreak when planted as a single species stand.  It can be mixed in with other plant species provided care is taken to mitigate competition from other plants whilst the Eucalyptus is establishing as they don’t compete well when young. We recommend that you establish the Eucalyptus for a year prior to planting additional species or you install an automatic irrigation system to ensure the Euc is receiving sufficient water.

We recommend

• you plant a smaller specimen (less than 1.8m tall in a 5 litre air-pot) A multi-stemmed bush will be ideal.
• encourage fast establishment in a deeply prepared planting pit (follow our planting advice), to encourage deep rooting to grow an upright, stable tree
• Staking will be required
• In very exposed locations, newly planted trees will very likely require a wind break shelter, such as netlon netting horticultural fleece, sail cloth or paraweb nailed on to sturdy tree stakes, for their first winter in the ground with you
• Zero grass or weeds during the period of establishment is non-negotiable!

• Drying up wet soils – nope. Not this species. She’s a snow gum and they hate boggy ground. Take a look at our swamp gums under ‘wet and clay soils’ instead.

• Tolerant of cold and exposed growing environments inland Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei will grow in open fields and pasture, once established – growing requirements tab
• Tolerant of poor stony soils once established Eucalyptus pauciflora subsp. debeuzevillei does not require a rich soil and can survive in poor, stony 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, deep root system before it can survive in dry, challenging conditions. 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. Growth on impoverished soils will always be reduced.