Eucalyptus is an extremely valuable foliage plant for your flower arrangements . As it is quite expensive to buy it is well worth growing as an annual in order to have a good supply.

Eucalyptus

For a cut flower garden Eucalyptus is perfect. It is tender and so not suitable as a tree if you are subject to frosts but if you do not use it all for your cut flower arrangements or Christmas wreaths you could overwinter in a cold greenhouse.

If you live in a mild climate it does form a beautiful rounded shrubby tree which can be kept small with pruning.

Eucalyptus has beautiful rounded grey green leaves that are also scented and last a long time in a vase. It is also great for drying.

Grow your eucalyptus from seed

Eucalyptus is slow to grow and so start early. Aim to start sowing in December or January in the northern hemisphere. It takes about 200 days from seed sowing to harvesting and so to pick in August you need to sow at the beginning of January.

Eucalyptus gunnii seeds germinate best if they have one to two months in the refrigerator before sowing.

Fill your seed tray or pots with seed starting compost. Place in water until the compost is fully damp and then put in a heat propagator for 24 hours to get up to temperature.

The next day carefully place one seed per cell or lightly scatter if using a seed tray.

Cover the seed with a very fine layer of the seed compost or use horticultural sand or vermiculite. Sand or vermiculite help prevent damping off and so are preferable.

Place the tray in your propagator. This is not essential but speeds up the process.

Keep the compost damp but not wet either by bottom watering or using a spray. Bottom watering is best as it greatly reduces the chances of damping-off.

Germination time of eucalyptus is erratic and can be quite quick but can take up to 3 months!

Germination can be started indoors but once the seeds germinate they need a lot of light and so a very sunny windowsill or greenhouse is ideal.

Once the first true leaves have appeared prick out the seedling and plant into a 9cm pot. Be ready to repot as soon as the roots appear out of the bottom or plant out if all risk of frosts has passed. Eucalyptus do not like their roots disturbed and so handle gently.

When planting Eucalyptus as an annual harvest you can plant out after all danger of frost has passed at about 30 cm apart.

However you may want to plant some in your main garden and if they overwinter you will be able to harvest from spring onwards the following year. Keep cutting to keep them small and bushy and these will be an attractive feature in your garden.

They are also more likely to survive the winter if they are cut back almost to the ground each year and grown as a small coppiced shrub.

Eucalyptus gunnii is one of the most common eucalyptus used in cut flower arrangements. Other eucalyptus great for cutting gardens are Eucalyptus silver dollar with its very silvery leaves and Eucalyptus baby blue with a more blueish colour.