PlantFiles: Weeping Bottle Brush
Callistemon viminalis

The cultivar Cascade, and the upright form of bottlebrushes are surprisingly hardy here in my zone. Cascade bloomed 3 flushes of blooms this past summer. These are sitting on a half whiskey barrels to boot. Very hardy. Thirsty plants, and love full sun with regular feeding.

I have 5 pot-grown specimens here in Powell, Ohio, USA (AHS Zone 5!). They spend the winter months under a 400 watt halogen light in my basement. Spring/fall is a sometimes daily trip to/from my garage and the outside, depending on forecasted low temperatures. Planted from seed in 1988, they have been pruned--including the roots--and repotted numerous times One blooms generously, three to a lesser degree, but one is a dud. Familiar with this plant from visits to my California inlaws. While they usually bloom for me in winter, it is a special treat and worth the effort to see Ruby-throated Hummingbirds visit them in May.

These trees grow wild in my area (sydney australia). had two uncared for 30yr plus trees, growing directly in grass. they can get scragly with lots of dead wood and poor flowering without basic maintenance.

A good yearly prunning after flowering and fertilising with low phosperous fertiliser made the world of difference and after only two years of the above treatment the trees are now starting to flourish and are covered with flowers and the trees are covered in lorrikeets and other colourful nectar eaters.

The great thing about this tree is that you could basically cut it in half and new growth would start sprouting from that point.

A wonderful Australian native that is drought tolerant once established. Its red, nectar rich blooms attract native birds, butterflies and bees. A wonderful tree. pokerboy.

These beautiful but non-native introduced trees (valuable and widely planted for shade and as an ornamental) that is native to Australia is widely planted in the southern U.S. in southern California and much of central and southern Florida. They also grow in Hawaii. They are hardy from zone 9a through 11. They are great as an ornamental tree and have a graceful, weeping form, attractive leaves and attractive flowers. However, they may be mildly invasive and are not good wind-resistant trees. Branches break quite easily in storms, and these trees do not do well to survive hurricanes at all. They easily topple over in those storms. If you live in central and southern Florida or in the Keys or other areas with storms, it may be something to remember. These trees are rather cold-hardy for something subtropical or tropical in nature and can withstand even mild and maybe moderate freezes up to zone 9a, maybe to zone 8b on occasion.

These trees were planted in many new home yards from the '20s to '40s.
In my part of Phoenix, Yaple Park, the one in my front yard is 60' high. (It would be taller, but the previous owner had the tree topped after part of it fell on the house during a wind storm some years back). My neighbors across the street has one that is closer to 70'. But it is litterly inches from from their house.
It is a lovely tree. However, it is very brittle and looses a lot of limbs/twigs during our many summer wind storms. It also must be tended too religiously. The weeping limbs grow quickly and before you know it, you have a huge limb hovering over your house or slapping you in the face as you try to work around it.
When I bought the house, mine was suffering from neglect, poor fertilizing habits and bad tree trimmings (I should say butcherings!). I have had to remove about 1/3 of the mass of the tree over the last 5 years due to some kind of insect infestation (luckily, it was contained to one of the three rather large limbs of the tree).
All in all, the tree gives that lovely, weeping willow affect. Just don't plant it too close to your house, or anything else you wouldn't mind loosing if a limb should decide it would be happier closer to earth.

This is a riverbank plant and can take quite wet soils as well as prolonged dry periods. It is spectacular in flower and drips nectar so birds and insects love it. It is better to take a cutting from a good flowering plant than grow from seed as they are very variable.

A lot of people don't like the look of the branches as they age, as the branch lengthens from the end of the flower and the little seed pods can be retained on a patch of bare branch for many years.A branch can then end up with many such patches along its length. If this is an issue for you, dead head ruthlessly after flowering.

It makes a great street tree, as it has a compact shape and it will take any amount of brutal and careless pruning and come back and recover a good shape in a surprisingly short period.

TAll, weeping trees with bright red bottle-brush flowers in spring and summer. Are a number of cultivars which seem to differ only in height of tree and slight variation in length/ size of flowers. Hardy, drought tolerant trees with extremely hard wood (had to cut one down once- THAT was tough!). Bark always peeling in small strips. Flowers tend to be sticky.