Eucalyptus perriniana – The Spinning Gum
How to use in the landscape and/or garden: How to grow or train it to get the best out of it
Eucalyptus perriniana is a very versatile species. It can be grown as a tree or a multi-stemmed bushy shrub.
Fabulous Specimen 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, street tree.
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 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 18th 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.
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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 18th (National Eucalyptus Day) 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 perriniana responds well to coppicing, once it has attained a trunk of some 125 mm in diameter at the base, and readily produces a multi-stemmed specimen. 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 or amazing foliage like the Spinning Gum.
- 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 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: E. perriniana 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.
Always keep pot-grown Eucalyptus in the air-pot container system for healthy and happy trees.😊 They do not thrive in smooth-walled containers ☹
Click here for information 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: E. perriniana is not on our selected species list for traditional hedge-screens and windbreaks, but it is a good choice for a fat 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 18th 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! Click here to learn more about why National Eucalyptus Day is important.
*Fat Hedge-Screen. A row of Spinning Gums will require about 2m-2.4m in width. With annual pruning, they will form an admiral, dense, visual screen. This kind of feature is best suited to large areas such as wilderness gardens, public open space settings where a spreading shrub can exert its presence!
Cut Foliage for Floral Art: Absolutely fabulous. The circular juvenile foliage is an excellent foil to spikey Dahlia and blousy flowers such as Hydrangea and Paeonia. Remember to give this species extra space when growing in your plantation – it needs about an extra 2-3 ft above the usual spacing, to produce good quality, damage free foliage.
The cut foliage can be preserved in glycerine.
Firewood Production: E. perriniana is not on our selected species list for Biomass or Firewood, but the wood does burn well.
Do give us a call on 01905 888098 if you would like to discuss growing firewood with one of our consultants
Rural/Agricultural:
- Good shade tree for livestock to stand under. Eucalyptus provide a cool environment for horses, cattle, llamas, sheep to shelter from the sun on hot days, as the mass evaporation of water through the leaves creates a cool shady canopy beneath. Good choice for silvopasture.
Ecology:
- All Eucalyptus produce flowers with nectar and pollen. E. perriniana flowers provide foraging for honey-bees and other pollinating insects
- 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. Birds enjoy roosting in Eucalyptus trees and Pheasants like rootling around underneath them.
- Chickens: The shredded foliage of perriniana is excellent at keeping Chicken nest boxes and hen houses free of red mites, which detest the presence of Eucalyptol. I used to line our Chicken boxes with shredded leaves, strew the floor and pile up the spindly branches for the chickens to make nests. It was all great till the foxes moved into the next field L
Environmental:
- Growing on the Coast Hailing from exposed conditions in mountainous regions, I suspect it may do well in milder coastal districts, when grown a mile or two inland of the sea, but this needs trialling. Do get in touch if you are giving this a go and let us know how you get on.
To make this work, we recommend that:
- you plant a smaller specimen (5 litre, less than 2m tall),
- 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.
- Newly planted trees will very likely require a wind break shelter for their first winter in the ground with you.
- Zero grass or weeds during the period of establishment is non-negotiable!
Shelter Belts and Windbreaks E. perriniana can be grown to form a good, low (2.5m tall) evergreen windbreak when planted as a single species stand. It can be mixed in with other plant species provided care is taken to (i) give it sufficient space to spread out sideways and (ii) 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)
- 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 exposed locations, newly planted trees will very likely require a wind break shelter 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 E. perriniana will enjoy moisture at its roots over the summer months. However, this species insists on having free draining ground for the rest of the year and will not be happy in intermittently wet ground in the winter. Please provide a moist, but free draining soil for this species.
Tolerant of cold and exposed growing environments inland E. perriniana will grow in open fields and pasture, once established.
We recommend
- you plant a smaller specimen (less than 1.8m tall in a 5 litre air-pot)
- 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 exposed locations, newly planted trees will very likely require a wind break shelter made from horticultural fleece or sail cloth, for their first winter in the ground with you; this very much depends on the level of exposure
- Zero grass or weeds during the period of establishment is non-negotiable!
Tolerant of poor stony soils once established E. perriniana does not require a rich soil and can survive in poor, stony soils. 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, 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.
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.
