This particularly compact form of Syzygium, or Eugenia as these Australian trees used to be known, is perfect for all sorts of trimming into shape. What makes it so good? It’s a combination of dense, evergreen, attractive foliage and a very quick new growth response to any cutting or trimming. It can be trained into all sorts of topiary shapes, including the popular lollipop style of bare trunk and rounded top, as well as cones, balls, squares and spirals. Or it can be grown as a low hedge, a purpose for which it is admirably suited because of that close-knit foliage that soon becomes a green wall with regular clipping.
If all that sounds like a little too much work, then Syzygium ‘Tom Thumb’ can be left to grow in its natural style, forming an attractive foliage shrub, with pretty cream flowers in spring and reddish-purple berries in late summer.
Syzygium ‘Tom Thumb’ is also well suited to growing in containers, looking especially good when it has been clipped to a distinctive shape. As with just about all container plants, except for exceptionally drought tolerant ones such as succulents, it will need regular watering if it is to thrive when grown this way. In the garden it is very easy care, tolerating summer droughts once established.
Full sun to partial shade (sun for a few hours per day) suit it best. When young it needs protection from all but the lightest frosts.
When Syzygium is clipped into topiary shapes it adds a definite character to gardens. Where there’s a group of such shrubs the effect is even more dramatic. There are all sorts of ideas, including clipping it into rounded balls of varying sizes. The great thing about living sculpture such as this is that if you don’t like the effect, you can let it grow and shape it differently the following year. Whereas if you buy a metal or wooden work of garden art and you decide you don’t like it after a while you’re stuck with it.
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Schemes & Themes
using Liddle Wonder Plants