Silver and green foliage that always looks fresh and appealing makes this form of the hardy and versatile native Pittosporum tenuifolium a very useful shrub or small tree. It can easily be kept low by regular clipping or can be allowed to grow into a very handsome small tree. Other things you can do with ‘Ivory Pillar’ include clipping it to form a hedge of medium to quite tall height, according to your needs, and it can even be clipped into topiary shapes if you wish. Although it looks quite dainty, it’s actually a tough customer, able to contend with dry and poor soils once established, hardy to all but the harshest frosts, and wind tolerant.
Silver foliage and white flowers are superb to combine with Pittosporum ‘Ivory Pillar’. Astelia ‘Silver Spears’ and Astelia banksii are two outstanding native plants which grow less than a metre high and have bold silvery foliage. They also adapt to a wide range of situations, from shade to sun and poor and dry soils.
In full sun, the tough Australian shrub Leucophyta ‘Silver Nugget’, with slender, twisted, wiry stems and little leaves, all the same silver colour, looks good among the Astelias in front of ‘Silver Pillar’.
Compact, white flowered shrubs which could make an intriguing foreground planting to Pittosporum ‘Ivory Pillar’ include Eriostemon ‘Bournda Beauty’ and Eriostemon ‘Cascade of Stars’, Coleonema ‘Album’, Parahebe ‘Snowflake’ and Osmanthus ‘Pearly Gates’, while the wonderfully free flowering Dichroa ‘Blue Sapphires’ can be used to create a classy, ivory and blue combo.
As if all that weren’t sufficient, the cut foliage of Pittosporum ‘Ivory Pillar’ is very useful for floral work.
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Schemes & Themes
using Liddle Wonder Plants