"Franz Heymann" wrote in message ...
"sheridan whiteside" wrote in message
om...
I have a eucalyptus tree which I bought at the beginning of the
summer. I say tree, but it is actually a single stalk, and is now over
now 7 ft tall! It has tiny offshoots but only above 4ft level.
How/where/when should I prune this to make it grow like a tree? (if in
fact possible)

Please do not prune it at all if you wish it to display the beautiful form
of a Eucalypt.
If you are not fussy about that, why did you buy it?

As an Australian, hear, hear! I don't really know what you mean by
growing "like a tree": if you mean "like a Pommy tree", well, it
won't, because they don't. They are absolutely beautiful, but have to
be given room to develop. Better still, they like to be in loose
groups of three or five if your spread's a bit on the baronial side.
In a smaller garden, you can of course grow them as coppiced specimens
cut back every year like golden osiers or red-barked dogwoods. You've
probably got E. gunnii, which responds best to being cut into an
artifical form, but I think they'll all take it.

To coppice it, wait till mid-March-April, then ruthlessly cut down to
just above ground level. Paint the top of the stump to keep rain and
nasties out. Give it a nice mulch, as you would a philadelphus or
something. Don't panic: these things are designed to recover from
bushfires, and in a few months the new growths could reach six feet!
Cut last year's growths back to the bottom at the same time every year
-- not as early as osiers or dogwoods, because the young shoots aren't
as hardy. Nice for flower-arrangements: you could probably sell the
best prunings at the WI jumble sale, or even to a florist.

A gumtree can also be grown as a bush, but it's more work, as you need
to prune in summer as well as spring. One branch will always try to
outgrow the others and make it back into a tree: these dominant shoots
will need to be cut back. I wouldn't bother with the bush form.

One advantage of gumtrees is that if you do let them rip, they don't
shade other plants as much as most European trees, even though
evergreen: the leaves tend to turn edge-on to the sun to save water.
Against that, they can develop vigorous root-systems!

Put a couple of leaves in your billy, and the tea will taste
wonderful. Not recommended for coffee, though!

Mike.