DROUGHT TOLERANT AUSTRALIAN PLANTS - LILLY PILLY

One of the drought tolerant Australian plants I am currently trying out in my garden as an alternative to traditional topiary is the Lilly Pilly.

The lilly pilly is one of the most popular plants in Australian gardening, particularly for topiary and hedging. Lilly pilly is the common name for a range of separate genera of what are basically evergreen rainforest plants with glossy green leaves.

Once lilly pillies were all known as eugenias. In recent years botanists have divided them into several genera, including Acmena, Syzygium and Waterhousea. They are very adaptable because they can take it dry or wet for long periods at a time but they do like it best where there is some good summer rainfall and deep soil.

They supposedly don’t tolerate frosts, but according to Di Johnson of the Garden Vineyard, they are undamaged by the mild frosts she recieves. I'll let you know how they fare here in the Midlands UK.

The most commonly available form here in the UK is Syzygium australe which has more pendulous red tipped new growth than many.

If anyone has tales they want to share of growing lilly pillys outside of their native lands - or suppliers outside the UK, please contact me through my garden design studio website

UK SUPPLIERS (according to the RHS!)

Syzygium australe

• Deelish Garden Centre, Ireland

• The Romantic Garden, Norwich

• Shrubland Park Nurseries, Ipswich

DROUGHT TOLERANT PLANTING - LEARNING FROM THE AUSTRALIANS

Monty Don's new Sunday night BBC programme 'Around the Garden in 80 Days' was focussed on the gardens of Australasia last week.

What I found most interesting about the show was Di Johnson's Garden Vineyard (on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne) and the way that she was clipping and topiarising drought tolerant Australian natives into columns and domes - much as we do here with box and yew.


Finding hardy drought and flood tolerant alternatives to our favourite garden plants is going to be more and more important as we continue to garden in the changing climate.


Although Taxus (Yew) is pretty drought tolerant, it is famously averse to waterlogged soil and flooding which can easily kill off even established specimens.


Buxus (Box) can cope with moist to dry conditions but will not survive a drought and the sheared leaves can scorch in hot weather. Add to this potential problems with box blight and there is going to be a real gap in the garden designers planting palette if an alternative is not found for this plant.

The two main Australian plants used for clipping are lillypillies and westringia, also known as coastal rosemary. I'm off to order some so that I can see how they fare here in the UK.

I'll let you know how I get on...