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Australian Native Plants

flowering gums

southerncrossag

19 years ago

I have recently fallen in love with flowering gums after seeing "Summer Red" out in full flower at my mates house. Do they lose leaves like other gum trees or don't they lose leaves at all like a true evergreen as I could see no evidence of fallen leaves on his year old tree?

Is there a site on the web with extensive information on these "Summer" hybrid grafted varieties?

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Comments (4)

TonyfromOz
19 years ago
All leaves of all trees are lost eventually, it's just that the life of any one leaf varies according to species and sometimes to environment -- anything from under 1 year (most deciduous trees) to over 20 years on some araucarias. I think in most eucalypts leaf life is in the 2 to 4 year range. Then they fall, but not all at once.
southerncrossag
Original Author
19 years ago
Well every eucalypt I have seen both in the wild and in home gardens sheds it's leaves like a permanent Autumn whereas other evergreens (say Camellia's for example) rarely drop a leaf. The fact that the flowering gum leaf looks glossier led me to believe it may not drop it's leaves as often as other "wild" varieties.
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I'd agree with you that they're insect galls. They certainly don't look like fungus. How does the tree look overall? Those leaves in the photo seem okay. If the tree still looks okay I wouldn't worry about it. It works a bit like a pendulum. Insect pests can suddenly build up a big population, predators are a bit slower. But eventually the pendulum swings back as the predators catch up and reduce the pests. Then the predator numbers die back because of lack of food, and so the back and forth continues.
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gregaryb
19 years ago
Eucalyptus ficifolia or Corymbia ficifolia do shed a little bark but the pieces are failry fine and they do shed their gum nuts along with small quantities of leaves.

But in general tend not to create as much mess as other Eucalypt species.
roysta
19 years ago
Greg is absolutely correct.
A little of the bark goes, not all the gumnuts, but it is a good idea to prune some of them away.
As for the leaves, they definitely don't lose as many as the regular eucalypts.

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