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Eucalyptus stellulata ‘Kiandra’ – Black Sally – 1 of our Amazing Swamp Gums

£80.00£345.00

Eucalyptus stellulata Beautiful flowers, foliage and bark make this a superb specimen evergreen tree. It develops a dense crown in maturity and so is a good choice of tree to provide shade.

Why we like this variety:

  • Elegant weeping habit of young foliage
  • Beautiful flowers
  • Fruity fragrant foliage
  • Striking bark – silvery pearl grey, moss and olive colours
  • Premium cut foliage

 

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: EUCKIA00T
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Description

Eucalyptus stellulata ‘Kiandra’ – Black Sally – 1 of our Amazing Swamp Gums

A beautiful evergreen tree with weeping habit in its formative years, and attractive bark and prolific flowers. ‘Kiandra’ is a selection exclusive to Hardy Eucalyptus at Grafton Nursery, one of fine form and healthy countenance.

Hop over to the next tab labelled ‘How to Use’ to learn about the many ways to grow this amazing tree

Find out about its likes and dislikes under the tab labelled ‘Planting Position’

Biometrics for Eucalyptus stellulata

Shoots ‘n Leaves: Young shoots are crimson.

Juvenile foliage is heart shaped. New emerging leaves in Spring pale lime-green in colour with a touch of gold, sage green suffused with pink.

Adult foliage 5-9 cm long and 1.5-2.5 cm wide, elliptical/broadly lanceolate, with 3 parallel veins. This feature shows that Eucalyptus stellulata is a monocalypt and related to the Snow Gum group, even though Snow gums enjoy free draining soils and E. stellulata enjoys wet ground.

Bark: Absolutely beautiful. Pearl grey overlaid with lime, moss and olive greens, with a hint of coffee and white patches; reminiscent of London Plane bark. Smooth and very tactile.

Flowers: Profuse clusters each of up to 15 buds which open to white star-like flowers; exceptionally pretty. Flowers are followed by tiny fruit pods.

Leaf Aroma: Strong  Eucalyptol with fantastic sweet pineapple, fruity and balsam aroma.

Rate of Growth: Slow to get going initially, whilst becoming established and then fast growth at 1.5-2.0 m per year.

Height in maturity, if left unpruned: Short term over around  4 to 5 m  Long term of 15-20 years or so, it could reach around 15 m if not managed. Eucalyptus stellulata responds well to branch tip pruning and pollarding, so can be kept as a smaller tree.  Visit our pruning guidance notes here

Easy to keep smaller by regular pruning – March 18th and end of May.

If pruned, it can be trained to form a screening tree with light tracery, a multi-stemmed bush like a species rose or coppiced Hazel tree.  Responds well to coppicing and 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.

Click here to view our YouTube video on pruning

To receive monthly pruning and aftercare advice, sign up to our Gumnut Club – its free and you can unsubscribe at any time.  To subscribe – just call or ping us an email to [email protected]

Hardiness: Good hardiness rating; root-system should be happy down to around -12°C to -14°C once mature, may be even lower with maturity on a good site.

Case Study: During the Beast from the East 2017/2018, our E. stellulata took the full force of the ice laden easterly winds as it roared up the valley and hit them full on.  They had completely defoliated by the March, but quickly leafed out again 4 weeks later, in the spring and made a beautiful and full recovery.

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, access to potassium improves hardiness
  • 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 read our Guidance Notes on how to help your Eucalyptus become more hardy and stress free

Additional information

Weight 5 kg
Dimensions 150 × 30 × 30 cm
Size

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Planting Position and Soil

Eucalyptus stellulata ‘Kiandra’- Black Sally

Requirements:

  • Sun: Enjoys full sun and open sky above. Avoid shade cast by other tall trees and buildings.
  • Soil type: Happy in a wide range of soils – ‘normal’ garden soil – sandy and loamy, draining clay, intermittently swampy. Grows for us on pH 8. Always performs best on those which are neutral to acid of average to good fertility.
  • Soil moisture levels: Hails from poorly drained sub-alpine woodland and cold valley bottoms, but also found on some dry Australian sites. Tolerates intermittently poorly drained soil; grows well on our horrible yellow swampy wet clay soil at Grafton Nursery. However, water well during the summer, for 2 growing seasons, to ensure your tree establishes well.
  • Environment: Good on most sites, but will requires a degree of shelter from other trees and shrubs on a very exposed high-altitude site

 

Recommendations:

  • If planting a large number for cut foliage, subsoiling will be a good practice to follow, especially if pastureland has previously been used by livestock.
  • 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 stellulata ‘Kiandra’- Black Sally

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

Eucalyptus stellulata is a beautiful, easy, relatively moderate sized tree, which can be grown as a single stemmed specimen or a multi-stemmed tree.

It develops a dense crown in maturity and so is a good choice if you want a tree to provide some shade.

It has an elegant relaxed habit, reminiscent of a weeping willow in its formative years, more upright in maturity, making it an attractive tree for the landscape.

A star performer as a winter feature tree especially when underlit.

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. The tree will shed its lower branches and crown raise itself naturally over time

  • 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.

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 3m (8ft) and 4m (12ft). Prune back growth every March 18th 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.  E stellulata  responds well to coppicing and readily produces a multi-stemmed specimen  responds well to coppicing, once it has attained a trunk of some 125 mm in diameter 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
  • to control height, whereby your Euc can be usefully maintained anywhere between 3m (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. stellulata  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 ☹

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 a case study:  At Grafton Nursery in 2012, a single row of 8 E. stellulata were planted to provide a light tracery of evergreen foliage. The trees were allowed to grow up to around 3-4m and pollarded every March down to around 2.4m (but this could have been lower at 1.5m and still been effective) and tip pruned end of May to control height and maintain sufficient foliage to screen our kitchen garden from the house. As of 2020, the trunks measured 125cm (5 inches) in diameter. The trunks were bare from ground up to around 1m. The foliage screened from around 1.2m up to around 3m. This proved to be very successful. The pretty weeping foliage was attractive all year round, but particularly impressive in Spring, being sage green with rose, gold and pale lime.

Floral Art:  E. stellulata produces premium cut foliage for Flower Farmers and floral art.  We find that it is slower to take off as a species, preferring to take its time in getting its ‘feet under the table’, but after an additional year or so, it takes off fairly quickly. Delightful fragrant foliage with a weeping habit, great for wedding work.

Firewood Production:  E. stellulata is not on our selected species list for Biomass or Firewood.

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.
  • Green foliaged species, which looks for comfortable and not ‘foreign’ in a rural setting – reminiscent of Willow Trees

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 on wet ground, when planted singly or in groups.  Birds enjoy roosting in Eucalyptus trees and Pheasants like rootling around underneath them.
  • Chickens: The shredded foliage of stellulata 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 🙁

 Environmental:

  • Growing on the Coast We have no experience of growing stellulata in a coastal environment.  I suspect it may do well in milder coastal districts, when grown a mile or two inland of the sea, but this needs trialling.  The leaves may get shredded in strong winds.  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:

  1. you plant a smaller specimen (1 litre or 3 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
  3. Staking will be required
  4. Newly planted trees will very likely require a wind break shelter for their first winter in the ground with you
  5. Zero grass or weeds during the period of establishment is non-negotiable!
  • Shelter Belts and Windbreaks E. stellulata hails from sub-alpine woodland and wet valley bottoms. We posit that it may do well in a mixed stand surrounded by other trees to protect it from aggressive winds. It will contribute to the mix by drawing on ground water making it a better environment for other species to thrive. As a stand-alone species, we don’t think it would be happy in shelter belts/windbreaks as the leaves will shred.

We recommend

  • you plant a smaller specimen (less than 1.8m tall in a 1, 3 or 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 Hailing from soggy valley bottoms in the wild, E. stellulata does prefer a moisture retentive soil and so may do well at drying up a wet UK soil.   E. stellulata is very at home in moist soils, such as a draining clay, draining peaty/loamy soils and draining sandy loams.
  • It must be remembered that Eucalyptus are not aquatic like a Mangrove, but several species tolerate flooding for up to 6 months of the year in their native lands. This is a great species to help you regain the use of intermittently boggy ground. Dry up wet ground that intermittently floods, gain remedial treatment for winter boggy ground or which suffers from outflow from a Septic tank system or unwanted intermittent seasonal ‘ponding’.  If you have un-usable winter-wet land, planting a group of swamp gums will help towards draining an area of ground. The timber could possibly be harvested to yield a crop of firewood logs too, if coppiced every 6-8 years.
  • Please note: Timber harvested from areas suspected to be contaminated with sewage should never be burned, but could be used in rustic garden construction, bug hotel, bean poles, edging pathways & borders etc.

Small Case Study: At Grafton nursery, several E. stellulata are thriving on our swampy, yellow pH8 clay soil.  A mature ex-show tree is being grown as a mallee towards the bottom end of the large field in winter-swampy conditions.  A couple are thriving in our cut foliage trial plot. A third is being grown as ‘shrub-on-a-stick’, being pruned every couple of years to maintain its height at 3-4m. It has made the ground much more workable and a Bay tree is thriving 1m from the tree.  None of the trees showed stress as a result of the 2022 summer drought, when our field set like concrete with 20cm wide x 60cm deep cracks!

  • Sustainable Drainage Systems aka SUDS Needs commercial trialling, but planted singly or in groups, stellulata will most likely draw on drain water percolating into swales or similar. E. stellulata is an ideal candidate for this because it hails from poorly drained sites and cold valley bottoms.  Coppice or pollard every few years if you need to control the overall height of the trees. Eucalyptus draw on ground water for twelve months of the year, unlike willows, which lie dormant for 5 months through the winter.
  • Eucalypts grown on continually wet ground The overall height of Eucalypts, grown on continually wet soils in inhabited areas, needs to be considered (as with any tree species of great height), especially in areas subject to strong gales.  Selecting your tree with a radial root-system is vital and therefore only use Air-Pot grown or air-root-pruned stock.  Eucalypts grown in smooth-walled pots are a ticking-timebomb liability and we can speak from personal experience.  Encouraging deep rooting by following our planting recommendations is essential.
  • In addition, if your chosen species has the genes to grow taller than 10-12m, it may be prudent to consider pollarding or coppicing after 8 years of growth, to control the height down to around 10m, to mitigate the risk of the trees being forced over in high winds. Once coppiced/pollarded, it is recommended to maintain overall height at 10m or less thereafter. This practice usually only needs carrying out once every 8 years or so.
  • Tolerant of cold and exposed growing environments inland stellulata will grow in open fields and pasture, once established.  Possibly not an ideal candidate for high exposed ridges and sites like open moorland, without additional shelter.  It will tolerate frosty valley bottoms.

     We recommend

  • you plant a smaller specimen (less than 1.8m tall in a 3 or 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.stellulata does not require a rich soil and can survive in poor, stony soils.   Tolerant of drier 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.

There is record of a stand of E. stellulata growing on the dry site of Brumby Point, eastern Victoria, Australia

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.

Nursery Notes and Trivia

Winter 2022 going into Spring 2023

  • Good stocks of nice quality 5 litre trees
  • 9 litre growing on – ready later in 2023
  • 20 litre – good quality mature stock ready now
  • 30 litre extra heavy-duty standards growing on, ready later in 2023            

Botanical Name: Eucalyptus stellulata ‘Kiandra’     MYRTACEÆ; Myrtle Family

Common Name:  Black Sallee, Black Sally, Muzzlewood (southeast Australia)

Status: Evergreen Tree

Origin: Eucalyptus stellulata naturally grows near Wallangarra, New South Wales, down through the Australian Capital Territory to near Melbourne, Victoria where it usually grows in open flat areas of the tablelands and mountains.

Often scattered in eastern Victoria, commonly in poorly drained sites of subalpine woodlands, although occasionally on drier sites such as Brumby Point, and at lower altitudes in cold valleys. Also found throughout similar subalpine and high country in New South Wales, especially on basaltic soils. (source Euclid)

Etymology: stellulata – stella star-like – refers to the arrangement of the profuse flower-bud clusters

Common names: sallee – we think this is a corruption of Sallow, such as in ‘willow-like’, with its pale green bark, long drooping foliage and slightly weeping habit.

Black – refers to the colour to which the resin in the sap dries – like little black bead on the trunk

Muzzlewood – the wood was used to make muzzles for young calves that were being weaned, possibly because the young bark is soft and pliable

Kiandra is an abandoned gold mining town and the birthplace of Australian skiing. The town is situated in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia, in the Snowy Monaro Regional Council inside the Kosciuszko National Park. Its name is a corruption of Aboriginal ‘Gianderra’ for ‘sharp stones for knives’. source Wikipedia

 Lignotuber:  it has one, which is a good thing!  Eucalyptus stellulata 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 E. stellulata will respond extremely well to both coppicing and pollarding practices, once large enough to tolerate it.

What is a lignotuber?  See our Blog post on the subject

 Interesting Notes:  Considered by botanists to be one of the snow gums, because (amongst other features) the adult foliage has parallel veins, but oddly this variety naturally inhabits valley floors and boggy areas with poor drainage; whereas snow gums tend to inhabit high altitude rocky free draining areas.

E. stellulata belongs in a group (called a section) of Eucalyptus called Longitudinales because of shared botanical characteristics surrounding leaves, flowers and fruits. The other two members of the group are E. moorei and E. mitchelliana

 

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