#leptospermum

Plant of the Day

Sunday 30 March 2025

The small New Zealand shrub Leptospermum 'Silver Sheen' (tea tree) produces striking silvery-blue foliage and small white flowers. It is tolerant to drought and to pruning, so perfect for creating this cloud hedge through the border.

AKA mānuka myrtle, New Zealand teatree, and broom tea-tree. 'scoparium' refers to the supposed resemblance to Broom. The Māori name mānuka comes from Proto-Polynesian *nukanuka or *nuka which refers to Decaspermum fructicosum which has similar small white flowers.

Leptospermum scoparium probably evolved in SE Australia, where its multiple evolved protections against bushfire and terrible soil quality would have been quite useful, but at some point in the last 20 million years they got across the Tasman to New Zealand and the Chatham Islands, where they weren't very common until humans arrived and generously applied more fire, and forest-clearing. It's now much more common in NZ than in Australia.

Its nectar is the source of Mānuka honey.

Sunday, 2nd January, 2022

The babies are growing!!! The kunzea very sadly has died back a bit so I'm going to have to trim it 😔

Tea Tree