Some plants are just plain tough: Melaleuca ‘Ulladulla Beacon’
I seem to be on a bit of a Melaleuca tangent of late so I am just going to go with it, Melaleucas are tough and perform beautifully under a range of conditions especially in a heavier clay soil, this is one of the many reasons I love Melaleuca hypericifolia ‘Ulladulla Beacon’.
Melaleuca ‘Ulladulla Beacon’ is a prostrate form of Melaleuca hypericifolia, it has a naturally soft weeping habit and makes a dense, quick growing mounding or carpeting shrub.
It also prunes beautifully, in the image above you can see it pruned formally into a striking low hedge.
‘Ulladulla Beacon’ flowers in spring, producing large bright orangey red flowers that are attractive to birds and nectar seeking insects. It is a great plant for attracting honeyeaters such as wattlebirds especially.
But my favourite feature of this plant is its interesting foliage and they way it works so well as a spill over on walls, rocks and garden edges, without ever missing a beat, it is super hardy!
Is there any evidence for or against ‘Ulladulla Beacon’ potentially being invasive? I’m from the US where in the south and west M hypericifolia is very much a noxious invasive weed. But I also garden a block next to remnant bushland in the Mt. Lofty ranges. We have a difficult slope where this would make a wonderful addition, but our only locally native bottlebrush is Callistemon sieberi (I think that’s now M. paludicola). While not threatened in the environmental sense, I don’t want to be That Person –the one who starts growing the next invasive weed.
Hi Chris,
Great question. As ‘Ulladulla Beacon’ is a low growing form of M. hypericifolia I wouldn’t plant it in your area as it probably has a reasonable chance of becoming invasive. ANAPSA mentions hypericifolia’s potential weediness here: http://anpsa.org.au/m-hyp.html
Best of luck,
Hannah