Commonly known as the blue gum or Sydney blue gum, this species of eucalyptus is native to eastern Australia.

Eucalyptus is the most commonly used emergent tree in syntropic agroforestry, due to its incredibly fast growth, and its ability to bounce back after a hard prune or coppice. Once planted they will quickly shoot for the sky, and within a season or two they will be pumping sugars into the soil, producing mulch to keep the ground covered, and providing shade and shelter for the more tender fruit trees growing below.

Eucalyptus have a reputation for depleting the soil of nutrients and moisture and also of being a fire danger. However we believe these issues are not applicable to a syntropic food forest where trees are kept small, pruned regularly and planted into a diverse community of other species. The fantastic soil building work they do far outweighs any potential negative effects on other plants in this context.

Here at Twin Falls we space them between our fruiting trees at 2-6m intervals and top them at about 6m high. This keeps them at a manageable size, providing large amounts of mulch every year while not letting them get so big as to overshadow or to out-compete the fruiting species below. If climbing a ladder doesn’t suit your management style then they can be topped at a shorter height, however a wider spacing should be used so they don't directly compete for space with fruiting trees. Alternatively they can be allowed to grow tall for a number of years (3-6) and then cut back to the ground. They will re-sprout and grow above the canopy again for a few cycles until the shade from the other species becomes too great.

Saligna is tolerant of a wide variety of soils, it can handle wet or dry conditions and it does not require much fertility. It is frost hardy. This species is a common forestry and farm tree in New Zealand, and is the one we have found to be best suited to syntropic agroforestry.

Size: Small plug

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