Arbutus Unedo (Rubra) shape and 75 other questions

Hi,
could anyone please post photos of their Arbutus Unedo to see the shape?

I would ideally have something narrow rather than wide, is it possible to prune it to form a rather upright plant? A one-stemmed would be ideal, but apparently it's naturally multistemmed and I don't want to fight things.

The only mature specimens I have seen have either been in a large garden or in the wild so it's hard to judge how the shape would fit into a small garden.

How do you prune yours?

Oh, and now that I'm on an asking spree , has anyone grown the Compacta one? If true Unedo is too big for me, Compacta might just be the plan B...

Thanks very much!

 

Hi Selleri, too dark now to get a photo, will post one tomorrow. I've always found this tree to be amenable to pruning. I had to chop the UK one quite severely but it always bounced back and didn't miss it's stride re. flowering and fruiting (pic attached, second in from left). Over here, it's much slower-growing, so no need to prune. It makes a nice, compact shrub 2m high by 1m wide rather than tree but that may be due to the competition on either side. As far as I know, Compacta has plain white flowers? The big attraction of rubra, for me, is that the pink flowers really glow, lighting up the plant until the fruit take over the display.

 

Over the last 10 years, my Arbutus has survived having its crown lifted, being topiarised and also being pollarded. Not bad for a shrub/tree that the RHS advises to keep pruning to a minimum . From my experience, it’s tough and can be pruned to suit the situation as required. I think it looks best multistemmed with the crown lifted slightly to expose the attractive bark but you could create a single stemmed, narrow tree with regular pruning @Selleri. Mine is recovering from being pollarded to about three feet at the moment so not very interesting but it is bouncing back well. This photo is when I topiarised it to fill a gap in my neighbour’s hedge behind. It worked, but I prefered it in a more natural shape . (To the right of the spherical conifer, in front of the fence.)

 

I've only got a couple of the white flowered ones, one has been pruned drastically over the years and is about 10ft but more of a bush rather than a tree, the other one has not been touched and is pushing 30ft.

 

My taller one might be Rubra looking at your pics @noisette47 , the flowers will be a month or more before coming out on mine but they are budding up.
Not easy to get a picture as its quite tall, but zooming in helps.

 

Yep, I'd say that that's 'rubra'. So pretty compared to the white one!

 

Thanks so much everybody for your pics and advise, Arbutus Unedo is definitely one I want and it's great to hear it's so versatile.