Sacha wrote:

Ours is doing the same and we haven't cut the dead tops out yet. *It's
got several trunks and is hooting from the top of all of them and the
side of one of them. *I hate the darned things but I know others love
them!

Not fond of the ordinary green australis myself and we didn't get it
cold enough for the bay to be rid of them :-( I do like Cordylines,
well quite a few of them, but the australis forms (even the coloured
leaf types) leave me cold. It's probably because they are so common
here. However, I do have a supposed hybrid that has extremely wide
leaves that arch out and down, as do the branches, creating a very
tropical effect. I still refer to it as an australis form, but the
flowers, habit and colour of the fruits are wrong for it to be that
species proper. The main plant is in a neighbour's garden, but they
decided to remove a couple of trunks that were arching over the main
path. I relieved them of a trunk, cut it into 30cms lengths and part
buried them in deep pots of perlite. They took a while to root and a
good 6 months before new shoots developed, but they're on the move and
starting to grow quite quickly.

I've also got a nice, trunked C. indivisa, which develops the widest
leaves of any Cordyline - up to 30cms wide on old plants and they are
olive green with silver undersides plus a very prominent orange yellow
centre rib. It's the sexiest of all Cordylines and slowly develops
into an unbelievably handsome tree. Then in a large pot on the steps,
there's C. 'Festival Burgundy' that has slender, 1.5m long, very
glossy, blackish-red leaves arising from a subterranean trunk so it
forms a fountain of foliage not much more than hip high. Tall flower
spikes carry hundreds of pale mauve flowers, which are a welcome
bonus. It is none to hardy so it needs a lot of protection away from
the south coast.

Another favourite that I have growing up into the lower branches of an
evergreen tree is C. stricta. This has branching trunks carrying
rosettes of fairly short glossy green leaves that are tinged purple.
The clusters of lavender coloured flowers in mid summer are especially
attractive. It is supposedly tender-ish and more often seen as a
house-plant, but managed to survive this past winter without too much
damage.