Leptospermum petersonii - Lemon Scented Tea Tree

[dansai]

After seeing Rycemans update on his natural competition tree I responded with some of my experience of growing them. To keep his thread from cluttering up as its a competition thread I thought I would post it separately here.

I have 3 trees that I have been growing out with the occasional hard cut back. I never cut back beyond green as some Leptos will not report if you do, unless I'm removing a branch. Sometimes I will get shoots from the end of the cut branch, other times, like Ryceman found, I will get a shoot from the base of the cut branch. I have also seen these trunk chopped in a nursery and they happily resprouted. But I tend to keep it on the safe side. There will often be back budding behind the green leaves.

New shoots tend to be very vigorous.

They love water and are often the first to go limp when thirsty. I now grow them in water which can produce lanky growth.

They will thicken in a pot quite nicely, albeit slowly. Best results are when left to run between chops.

They will get ropey trunks as vascular tissues thicken to feed vigorous branches.

Bark is lovely and flakey.

I have only done a little wiring as they tend to produce interesting shapes themselves. They are quite flexible but tend to spring back quite easily so would need thick aluminium wires on woody branches. I haven't tried copper yet but one of my trees I want to do some wiring on so will see if that holds better. One of the trees I put aluminium wire on didn't give me much control, but I wasn't looking to manipulate it too much, rather just spread it out a bit. (It will be in the pictures below)

They produce a lot of fibrous roots quite easily so repotting is straight forward and they don't seem to mind a lot of root reduction. Like all my natives I wait until warmer weather settles in. Where I live that would be anytime from late September. I could probably also repot in autumn as we have pretty mild winters.

And with that, now to the pics.

No 1. Ive left the top uncut as I want to thicken the trunk a little more

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 1.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 2.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 3.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 4.jpg

No 2. Ive left the low branch to help thicken the base

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 5.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 6.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 7.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 8.jpg

No 3 was done a few days ago so no before shot. You can see the aluminium wire I used just to spread the branches a little.

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 9.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 10.jpg

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 11.jpg

[dansai]

I also recently acquired some Leptospermum Little Lemon Scents. This is a shorted bushy form of L. petersonii. And they still have the lovely smell and would appear to flower more readily as small plants. I collected some seed so hopefully I will get some seedlings with similar traits. And I will be taking cuttings. It is listed as PBR on the label, but I searched it up and the PBR has been withdrawn, so I suppose that means its ok to propagate from.

They were the last 2 in a nursery and looked a little tired so I've potted them on and expect they will reward me with strong growth. They are also currently flowering and about 50cm tall. All the movement was already there.

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 12.jpg

And the same plant with some of the regular species foliage in the foreground.

Lemon Scented Tea Tree - 13.jpg

[Ryceman3]

Nice! Love these kind of posts… thanks for taking the time to share. Particularly like the look of “tree 2” from your first post, elegant lines on that and looks very natural in its form (in my head anyway).
I’ll keep plugging away with mine, I think I might up-pot my non-comp tree and see what happens based on your experience.
The “little lemon scents” also sound like they’re worth a shot.

[boom64]

Interesting approach dansai . I think i will join Rc3 and pot up one to see how things turn out. Good looking trees .Cheers John.