Cider gum

Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

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Edwards Plateau savanna

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Mojave desert

New Zealand North Island temperate forests

The largest native cherry of eastern North America - a medium-to-large deciduous shade tree that hangs elongated racemes of small white flowers in spring, then ripens drooping strings of pea-sized fruit from red to near-black in late summer. The fragrant white bloom feeds bees while the fruit is eaten by 33 species of birds and many mammals; it is also a workhorse larval host, supporting the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a string of giant silk and sphinx moths. Every part except the ripe fruit is cyanide-bearing and toxic.

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun

Water

Moderate water

Spacing

25 ft

Habit

Fast-growing evergreen tree of 40 to 100 feet if left unpruned, with peeling cream and brown bark; often cut back hard every spring and grown as a multi-stemmed shrub to keep its rounded juvenile foliage

Care tips

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Decide early whether you want a tree or a foliage shrub, because they need opposite treatment: left unpruned it grows into a tree of 40 to 100 feet with adult foliage and flowers, while cutting it back hard each spring (the RHS pruning group 7 treatment) keeps it in rounded, glaucous-blue juvenile foliage.

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Plant in full sun; it grows in sand, loam or clay and tolerates drought once established, but dislikes shade.

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Plant it out small from a container and shelter it from strong, cold wind: eucalypts resent root disturbance, and larger plants set out in windy sites suffer wind-rock.

Lifecycle

Planting

Give it full sun and well-drained soil. Plants For A Future lists it for light sandy, loamy and heavy clay soils, notes that it tolerates poor soil but dislikes shade, and says it needs shelter from strong winds if it is not to become wind-shaped; the RHS likewise recommends a sheltered site. It is one of the most cold-hardy eucalypts, but Plants For A Future notes that eucalypts keep growing until the cold stops them, which leaves them open to damage from sudden cold snaps, and suggests a deep mulch over the roots to keep the soil from freezing. Decide before planting whether you want a large tree or a hard-pruned foliage shrub, because that choice drives how you site and space it.

Transplanting

Plants For A Future notes that eucalypts are shallow-rooted and strongly resent root disturbance, so buy a young container-grown plant and set it in its permanent position while it is still small, which also keeps it from being rocked loose by wind. Plant at the original depth, water it in well, and avoid rigid staking so the young trunk can flex and strengthen. An established tree is difficult to move and, if grown on to full size, needs real room away from buildings.

Early growth

Growth is fast from the first season, and a young plant left alone soon forms a leading shoot in rounded, glaucous-blue juvenile foliage. For the best juvenile foliage the RHS advises hard pruning every year (its pruning group 7) rather than the minimal pruning suited to a tree (group 1): cutting the plant back hard each spring gives up the tree form but keeps it a manageable, re-sprouting shrub of juvenile leaves. Plants For A Future notes that it responds well to coppicing.

Maturity

A tree allowed to grow on develops grey-green, elliptic to sickle-shaped adult leaves and peeling cream and brown bark, and can reach 40 to 100 feet; Trees and Shrubs Online records British specimens of 90 feet and more, the tallest a tree of 110 feet at Trebah, Cornwall, measured in 1959. It flowers in small white clusters and sets small woody capsules. A plant cut back every spring instead stays a dense shrub of juvenile foliage for as long as the pruning continues, and the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland notes that pollarding reduces the seed a tree produces.

Propagation

Grown from seed, which is how nearly all cultivated stock is raised. Plants For A Future notes that seed from survivors growing in temperate gardens can give markedly hardier offspring, and Trees and Shrubs Online records that many British trees descend from a famous tree at Whittingehame in East Lothian whose seedlings proved uniformly hardy. Young plants carry a lignotuber (Wikipedia), so a cut-back plant resprouts strongly from its base; that is what makes annual hard pruning possible, not a way to propagate it.

Native range

Climate notes

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Plants For A Future lists a USDA hardiness range of 7-10 for Eucalyptus gunnii, read here as 7a-10b. Neither NC State Extension Plant Toolbox nor Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder profiles this Tasmanian species, so that is the only machine-readable zone statement available, and it is recorded as a hardiness exception.

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Treat 7a as the cold limit rather than a comfortable fit. The RHS rates it H5, hardy in most places throughout the UK even in severe winters (5 to 14°F), and gives it an Award of Garden Merit; Plants For A Future gives long periods down to 7°F and short periods down to -0°F, and Wikipedia gives 7°F, exceptionally -4°F for brief periods. Zone 7a winters bottom out at 0 to 5°F, so plants there live at the edge of their short-exposure tolerance.

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In the wild it grows on the plains and slopes of the central plateaux and dolerite mountains of Tasmania at up to about 3,609 feet, where summers are mild and winters cold, with frequent frost and heavy snow (Wikipedia); Trees and Shrubs Online describes it forming subalpine woodland in marshy situations on the central plateau.

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Full sun suits it best. Plants For A Future rates it for dry, moist or wet soil and as drought-tolerant once established, and the RHS lists chalk, clay, loam or sand that is moist but well-drained, poorly drained or well-drained, acid or neutral. Plants are shallow-rooted and benefit from shelter from strong wind. The RHS notes it may be susceptible to eucalyptus gall wasp and eucalyptus sucker.

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The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland records it as a neophyte that has naturalized in woodland and on roadsides in south-eastern England and occasionally regenerates from seed, and Wikipedia (citing POWO) lists it as introduced in New Zealand and parts of the Caucasus. No source consulted describes it as a serious invader, but pull unwanted seedlings, especially near semi-natural woodland.

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Conservation: the IUCN Red List (2019 assessment, via Wikipedia) lists Eucalyptus gunnii as Endangered, and Trees and Shrubs Online notes that the subspecies divaricata, restricted to a small area of central Tasmania, is considered endangered in Australia.

Plant this, not that

Better fit for this place

For Chicago, IL, these are replacement suggestions: similar plants with a stronger hardiness fit now and/or in 2050.

Prunus serotina

Black cherry

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Ostrya virginiana

American hophornbeam

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Tilia americana

American basswood

A massive native deciduous canopy tree of eastern North American floodplain forests producing distinctive mottled white-tan-gray exfoliating bark (the design-defining trait - sycamore bark looks like military camouflage), large palmate maple-like leaves, and persistent spherical seed balls. Among the largest deciduous trees in eastern North America - old-growth specimens exceed 150 feet tall + 10 feet trunk diameter. Site only where massive scale is acceptable.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Platanus occidentalis

American sycamore

One of the world's most spectacular flowering trees and, in the same breath, one of its most dangerous invaders. Spathodea campanulata is a large, fast-growing tropical tree native to the moist forests of West and Central Africa (GBIF), carrying a dense crown of glossy compound leaves topped by showy, upturned clusters of big, frilly, scarlet-to-orange, tulip-shaped flowers (the boat-shaped buds hold water). It is glorious - and it is a serious invasive. The African tulip tree is listed among the IUCN "100 of the world's worst invasive species"; outside its native range it has overrun wet-tropical forests across the Pacific, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia and Australia, and its flowers can be lethal to native bees. Plant it ONLY where it is genuinely native or where it cannot escape, and first check that it is not prohibited locally - do not plant it in any tropical region where it can naturalise. It is frost-tender (USDA 10a-11), fast, and wants full sun and moisture; in cold-winter climates it is grown only as a tender container specimen kept frost-free. It is an ornamental, not a food plant.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Spathodea campanulata

African tulip tree

A dense, conical-to-narrow-pyramidal evergreen tree native to eastern and central North America, prized as a screening and foundation conifer. Flat, fan-like sprays of scale-like, aromatic yellow-green foliage clothe the tree from the ground up, and red-brown bark exfoliates on mature trunks. Wild trees can reach 40 to 60 feet but cultivated plants typically stay near 20 to 30 feet; small urn-shaped cones and dense evergreen cover make it valuable food and shelter for birds.

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

Once the dominant canopy hardwood of the eastern United States forest - an estimated four billion trees, prized for fast growth, rot-resistant timber, and an enormous annual crop of sweet edible nuts that fed people, livestock, and wildlife alike. In the early 1900s an introduced Asian fungus, chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), swept through and functionally destroyed it: by the 1950s the species was effectively extinct as a mature forest tree. Surviving root systems still send up sprouts from old stumps, but the blight almost always girdles and kills them before they can grow large enough to flower and reproduce. The honest reality for a gardener is that you cannot reliably grow a mature wild-type American chestnut today. The realistic paths are blight-resistant backcross hybrids from The American Chestnut Foundation or transgenic blight-tolerant lines still being deployed - not a pure wild seedling, which the blight will almost certainly kill.

The American elm is the great vase-shaped shade tree that once arched over Main Streets and town commons across eastern North America - a fast, extremely cold-hardy deciduous tree of 60 to 80 feet whose upright trunk divides into a fountain of high, spreading limbs that meet overhead to form a living cathedral ceiling. That iconic form, and the species' tolerance of wet soil and tough urban conditions, made it the default American street tree for a century. Then Dutch elm disease (DED) - an introduced fungal disease carried by elm bark beetles - swept through in the 20th century and killed the vast majority of mature street and shade elms across the continent. The honest reality for a gardener today is blunt: do not plant the unselected wild species expecting it to survive. If you want the American-elm form, plant a DED-tolerant cultivar bred and selected for resistance - 'Princeton', 'Valley Forge', 'New Harmony', or 'Jefferson' - and say so plainly. Where it does grow, it is fast, hardy to USDA zone 3, and remarkably forgiving of wet ground and city stress.

The only native U.S. holly with both spiny green leaves and bright red berries - an upright, pyramidal, broadleaf evergreen tree that slowly matures to 15 to 30 feet in cultivation (to 50 feet in the wild). Thick, leathery, deep green leaves bear spiny marginal teeth, and pollinated female trees carry showy red-to-orange drupes that ripen in fall and persist through winter as bird food. This is the classic "Christmas holly" of wreaths and decorations.