Corymbia Species, Red Flowering Gum, Scarlet Flowering Gum Tree

I was taking a stroll down Memory Lane, pulled up the Google Maps street-view image of a house I lived in 60 years ago - and saw that wha...Read Moret had been a smallish street tree in 1960 is still there, now huge. In my memory of life as a 5-year-old, I thought of it as a bottlebrush tree (the blooms do somewhat resemble bottlebrush), so I started researching what variety it might be - only I couldn't find any bottlebrush trees that reach 30+ feet and live 60 years. So my search branched out to looking for matching seed pods, and I finally hit on the Red Flowering Gum. It's comforting to me to know that, although my beloved home town has changed drastically in the decades since I left it, that tree is still there. (Shoot, the house itself is unrecognizable - it was a small 2 bedroom/1 bath when I lived there as a child; now it's a two-story 3/2.) I'm thinking of writing to the current owner and asking if they can pick and send me some seed pods; I'd like to try to propagate this relic from my childhood.

we have three of the E. ficifolia in our yard (about 50yrs old). it was planted above a raised masonary block retaining wall (~3ft high)...Read More about 7 ft from the retaining wall. the retaining wall has not suffered any damage from the roots. So I do not think it's a high-root-damage tree as long it has alternative areas for the roots to grow (in our case, in the direction along and away from the retaining wall).

THey grow relatively quickly when they're young, but once it reaches about 25-30ft, they seem to slow down and didn't grow much taller. When healthy, the canopy is dense dark green, and when it flowers it's spectacular, and buzzing with honey bees and humming birds. If you want to attract honey bees, this tree is it. when you go near it when it's flowering, sometimes you can hear a buzz overhead swarmed with bees. Very cool. Squirrels love to chew on the seed pods which are the size of a small golf balls (and equally hard). so the seed pod litter can be a problem especially when they land on our concrete patio (trip/slip hazard), but our kids likes to collect them and play with them so whether it is a problem will depend on the immediate surroundings.

Even with prolific seed pod litter that is largely left untouched, we have not experienced a single proliferation of this tree in 50 years or so. so it's definitly not invasive.

Our trees grew relatively slender. so it is taller than it is wide. I've seen some shorter trees (about 15ft?) that are more round canopy and is a standard. So I think you can get a pretty wide variety of shape depending on its individual growth habits.

it sheds leaves periodically right before the flush of new growth, but otherwise it's evergreen and very pretty tree to look at year-round. It's one of our favorite trees in our yard.

when they get old, they can get a bit leggy. so depending on your plans, you may want to put some pruning regimen in relatively early on so that you can keep an ideal height (easiest to maintain between 20-30ft) with bushy growth without having to resort to drastic measures to reduce the height. Great tree for privacy screen to screen out the pesky uphill 2nd floor neighbor from looking into our yard.

it does have a tendency to sprout branches mid-trunk or at the base if you allow it. if so, you can end up with a multiple-trunk specimen and not so much a "standard". we have one that is essentially a single-trunk 30ft tree, and another that has four 8-10in diameter trunks from the base. again, it all depends what you want. it responds to pruning well.

While this tree is very showy when in flower, it should not be planted as a street tree. The flowers drip large amounts of nectar on cars...Read More and sidewalks, Then the large woody seed pods are a hazard to cars when they drop, and to pedestrians who might trip on them.
It should be used only in gardens and parks.

Very beautiful flowering Gum. I have 2x growing in my garden, and this is there second winter coming up ~ all good so far.
The har...Read Morediness zones that are posted for this tree are incorrect by miles.
This tree is only hardy to zone 9a, and would most likely be killed if temperatures drop much below -7c or 19f.