Alongside growing cut flowers, we also grow eucalyptus, because foliage is essential for bouquets. We start our eucalyptus from seed every year; some go into our bouquets, and the rest travel to you as young plants. To help your eucalyptus thrive, we decided to write a short and honest guide.

Eucalyptus

The most reliable way to grow it is to keep your eucalyptus outside on a patio or balcony, and as soon as there is a risk of frost, bring it indoors (to a conservatory or cool hallway).

We don't recommend it much as a houseplant. Only if you have a very sunny room. It definitely won't thrive next to a TV where there is barely any daylight, or near a fireplace or other heat source.

Eucalyptus will create a lush bush and brighten up your summer patio, but don't expect it to replace a walnut tree in the yard. The eucalyptus plants we grow do not have a trained root system and will not grow into massive trees. If you buy a small eucalyptus from us in May, by August it will look similar to the large one.

Is this your first eucalyptus?

We would like to set expectations from the start — eucalyptus is for advanced growers. If you are a beginner, stick to this guide; it will be easy through the summer, the eucalyptus will grow like crazy, and then at the beginning of autumn, everything might suddenly start to go wrong... Even so, it will bring you joy during the summer, it will smell wonderful, and you can occasionally snip a branch for a vase or dry it.

The eucalyptus you can buy in our shop comes as a young plant. The small one is in a 7×7 (cm) pot, and the large eucalyptus is in a large 25×25 (cm) pot. The small eucalyptus is 6+ months old, and the large one is 9+, some even 14+ months old. On the farm, we grow eucalyptus as small bushes from which we harvest stems for our arrangements; these bushes are about 1.8 m tall.

Life cycle

From May to September/October, it will grow like crazy. It grows incredibly fast outside during the summer, and your eucalyptus will double in size in a few months. As soon as autumn arrives—shorter days, less light, and lower temperatures—the eucalyptus will stop growing.

Be prepared that it won't grow at all during the winter, not even an inch. It might survive, but you will likely spend your time diagnosing one problem after another—sometimes edema from high humidity, sometimes something dries out. It's a depressing period, but don't worry, as soon as the days start getting longer and there's more light, the eucalyptus will come back to life, and you'll see it sprouting new shoots. At that point, you've become an advanced grower, as you've successfully overwintered your eucalyptus.

Even though we successfully overwinter our eucalyptus on the farm, we prefer to warn you that it is a challenge and you should be prepared for the scenario where you fail to overwinter your eucalyptus. It can simply dry out overnight. You might not even notice it happen or know exactly what caused it—whether you didn't water it enough or overwatered it. It just turns into a biscuit.

Step by step

Location

Sunny, full sun, as much sun as possible. On our farm, we have the eucalyptus on a plot that gets sun all day long, and we use black landscape fabric underneath to maximize the heat. Choose the sunniest spot in your garden for your eucalyptus.

Substrate

You can use regular potting soil or common garden soil as a substrate. Mix the substrate with sand in a 1:4 ratio (one part sand to four parts soil). The sand ensures the substrate is well-draining, preventing your eucalyptus from rotting.

Pot

We recommend gradually repotting the eucalyptus into larger pots. If you order a small eucalyptus from us, it will arrive in a 7×7 (cm) pot. The first thing to do is repot it into a slightly larger one. Don't move it directly into massive containers.

Go for one size larger, such as 9×9 or 12×12. If you were to repot it into a huge container immediately, there is a risk you could drown it during watering. To give you an idea—on our farm, we start the eucalyptus in seed trays (3 cm ø), then repot into 7×7 pots, then shift them to 12×12, and only then do they graduate to the largest 25×25 pots. Skipping a size has always come back to haunt us.

Support

Before your eucalyptus gets strong, we recommend providing support. We use a bamboo stake and simply tie the eucalyptus to it.

Watering

Only water the pot once the substrate has dried out completely. Be careful, though; eucalyptus can barely survive 4-8 days without water before it won't recover. You need to balance the watering carefully—it cannot stand in water, but it also cannot withstand completely dry substrate.

The best method is bottom-watering—place the pot in a saucer. The plant will absorb just what it needs, and you can empty the excess water from the saucer.

During the summer, we water our eucalyptus once a week using a drip irrigation system, where the water drips directly to the roots for 1-2 hours. In winter, when we store our eucalyptus in a heated polytunnel, we reduce the frequency and water approximately once every 2-4 weeks. It is always necessary to check that it is not sitting in water.

Fertilizing

You can fertilize your eucalyptus from April to August, ideally once a week.

Do not fertilize eucalyptus with nitrogen, but reach for a fertilizer high in potassium (K). For organic fertilizers, you can use ProKton or Free PK, for example. For synthetic fertilizers, choose Kristalon Fruit & Flower, or any other fertilizer where the composition is dominated by K. Kristalon Fruit & Flower has an NPK ratio of 15-5-30, meaning it has twice as much potassium (K).

Fertilizer composition

Fertilizers always have their composition and the ratio of NPK elements listed; N is nitrogen, P is phosphorus, K is potassium. The composition can be stated as, for example, "19-6-20," which means it contains 19 parts N, 6 parts P, and 20 parts K. If you are looking for a fertilizer with a high potassium content, the third number (K) should be twice as large as the other two (N and P). The aforementioned Kristalon Fruit & Flower has twice as much potassium (K).