Garden shrubs – Callistemon

Much better known by the common name, Bottlebrush, the Callistemon has exuberant, colourful ‘flowers’ which are actually an inflorescence clusters of tiny flowers arranged along and around the branches, forming the familiar bottlebrush shape. The blooms are remarkable for their long, showy stamens, tipped with a dot of bright yellow or cream coloured pollen, giving them their ‘fibre-optic’ appearance. As a bonus, young foliage of many bottlebrushes is ornamental, often coloured and covered in fine, soft hairs. Mature foliage is fine lance shaped leaves. Although seen with bright red flowers, less common varieties have white, yellow, pink, purple or even green flowers. Mostly they are shrubby, arching plants although a few would be small trees in their native habitat and some others are suitable as ground cover.

This family of what are (in their native land) evergreen shrubs are often viewed as being difficult to grow because they are tender in the UK, but this is not always the case. Several species and cultivars are hardy in most areas, some growing well in Scotland. In the wild, bottlebrushes are mostly found in the east and southeast of Australia where they thrive moist conditions, along creeks, by the edges of swamps or in open forests with high rainfall.

C. viridiflorus and C. citrinus will tolerate temperatures down to -5°C (23°F) as long as the weather is not too damp, while C. subulatus and C. pallidus will cope down to -10°C (14°F). Less hardy varieties can be helped through winter if grown in containers and taken into the greenhouse or given full sun in a warm position such as by a south facing wall in well-drained soil with some wind shelter.

Callistemon photograph by meshmar2, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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