Callistemon (Bottle Brush Shrub) help

Hi just moved house and have a bottlebrush shrub, does anyone have experience of pruning and taking cuttings or seeds?

MTA
Colin

 

Hi Colin

How lucky of you to move to a house that has a Callistemon. I have the C viminalis here (the weeping one) but I can't and won't advise you because my conditions here in Portugal are different than the UK.

I know there are many folk on GC who have them and one will come along shortly and give you the correct advice you require.

 

Strongylodon is your man. I hope he sees your question.

 

Colin, I presume you have one in your new garden and I suspect it is the common red variety with small narrow pointed leaves. If it is, then it is fully hardy and unless really small, should flower every year round about the end of June. If it looks untidy or you just think it needs pruning do it immediately after it has finished flowering. There is, in my experience, the possibility that it may sulk the following year and not flower very well.
Seed, easy to propagate. Remove seed capsule from the stem and dry in a bag for a month or so. When they look dry and slightly shrivelled, carefully cut them open and about a hundred brown seed should fall out (don't sneeze, they are very small). Sow VERY thinly in a shallow pot or tray in multi purpose covered with glass or in a polythene bag at a temp of 21/23c, when about 1" high transfer into a 3" keeping them inside for a year.

Hope this helps.

 

I had some in my garden in the West of Scotland. Very mild climate.
|I grew them from seed - no problem - germination easy - and the plants grew on quite quickly.
The plants got quite big quite quickly and they always looked healthy.
But they never flowered. In the end I gave up with them - after about 6 years of waiting.
Good luck with yours.

 

The common red Callistemon Rigidus/Linearis and the two yellow ones C Pallidus and C Salignus are very hardy but most of the larger wider leaved Citrinus species such as C Splendens are not, the have given up even down here. I think all Callistemon would suffer some damage below -8c for long periods.

 

Did you have a bash armandii at growing one? ive managed to keep a few alive up to now from the seeds off strongy not sure how many of each i will do a head count tomo

 

I have lost a couple even down here, -9c was too much for them.
The leaves on two mature ones have turned red but are still healthy.

Pleased to know you have got some coming on Joolz, they take a while to get going. I always kept my seed sown/cutting raised ones under glass for at least 18 months.

 

Sorry, for those of you who have looked at my garden thread, but here is mine at the moment ...

 

i think ive lost some to the draft being to near to the gerenhouse door but the ones that i kept at the back all snug in a straw bed seem ok,small but alive the red ones that id grown from the seeds i managed to save from darrans original red bb are bigger but i did sow them a few months earlier on,so hopefully now its getting warmer your batch might get a spurt on it was 90 degrees in the greenhouse so they have no excuse x

 

Stunning victoria i so hope i can eventually get all mine to that size x

 

There was a Callistemon viminalis in on a street here, it's still there (it's actually bigger than Victorias), but it got cut back by the December 2010, but it's re-growing quick.. I love the weeping habit it has.

There was also a few Callistemon citrinus here too, one which survive for 10 years or so before being killed !