Episode: One
Date: 18th April (19th in WA)
Story: New Release plant- Vintage Red
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane

The world has some red foliage trees that are mainly deciduous, a new kind however, is an Australian Eucalyptus called Vintage Red which doesn?t lose its leaves. Trevor takes a closer look.

Featured plant: Vintage Red, Eucalyptus cladoclayx

Vintage Red is a decorative ornamental Australian native tree with stunning red foliage. It is the first red foliaged Eucalypt to be released anywhere in the world. Vintage Red is a form of Sugar Gum and it produces distinctive stems and branches which when young are almost black in colour. As the plant matures the deep coloured bark on the branches and trunk peel away revealing a contrasting smooth grey bark through the summer months.
The unique foliage colour can change from bright red to purple and grey depending on the direction of the sunlight and the age of the foliage. Vintage Red will grow to approximately 10-20m tall x 5-10m wide depending on the environmental conditions.

Vintage Red is a medium to tall ornamental tree and is ideal for large home gardens, parks, roadsides, acreage and farms. For use in smaller gardens and close to houses Vintage Red can still be used provided it is pruned back by 1/3 every 12 months once it reaches 2-4m tall, and is kept low by pruning it for the rest of its life. This way it?s like having a big shrub. If you do have a larger home garden or more room for the tree to grow, by pruning in this way you can produce denser more compact foliage and a tree that grows to your own desired height requirements. The beauty of Eucalyptus cladocalyx is that it responds better than other Eucalypts at being pruned, forming a nice dense habit with regular pruning.

Vintage Red is a grafted plant and when it does become mature it can tolerate being cut back hard down towards the bottom of the trunk provided it is cut well above the graft union. This procedure is called coppicing and results in the production of young vigorous stems. Please note that with any grafted plant any growth or shoots arising from below the graft union must be cut back immediately flush with the stem. This growth will be from the rootstock, and if allowed to grow will impede the vigour of the Vintage Red plant. If pruning is not required Vintage Red will grow into a gorgeous looking single trunked specimen or feature tree.

Vintage Red is an excellent feature tree, specimen tree and shade tree. It is an ideal plant for use in cut foliage. The foliage will never have to be dyed to obtain the beautiful red/purple foliage which florists desire. Vintage Red has extreme drought tolerance and will live in very low rainfall parts of Australia. Once established Vintage Red will live on natural rainfall in all areas of Australia and will tolerate light to moderate frosts.

Vintage Red thrives in all well drained soils and most climatic conditions. Vintage Red is best suited to an open sunny position, with good drainage and a well mulched garden. Vintage Red will also tolerate part shade. Avoid planting Vintage Red under power lines unless you intend to continue pruning every 12 months to keep Vintage Red at the desired height.

Vintage Red is a grafted plant and is being professionally grafted by experienced nurserymen within the industry. As with any living graft use due diligence to regularly monitor the structural integrity of the graft to ensure the graft is in good condition. The rootstock selected for Vintage Red to be grafted onto is its parent plant; the common Eucalyptus cladocalyx. This is a very strong rootstock and it produces a very strong and stable graft union when grown together with Vintage Red.

To ensure the graft union is kept healthy avoid mulching too high around the base of the plant or planting too deep so that the bottom of the trunk or graft is covered by soil or mulch. Both of these things will encourage the base of the plant to rot and cause decay, and this will then create a weak plant and possibly an unstable graft.

Please follow these directions and you will be enjoying your unique Vintage Red plant for many years to come.
Follow the Advanced Trees link at www.bestplants.com.au to find out all about Vintage Red.

Ozbreed is a well known environmental turf and landscape gardening plants breeder specializing in native grasses, grass-like ornamental landscape gardening plants and tough drought tolerant turf varieties.

View the list of stockists to the ozbreed new release plant

Contact
OzBreed
Phone: 02 4577 2977
Email:  info@ozbreed.com.au
Website: www.ozbreed.com.au and www.bestplants.com.au