Leptospermum Starry Night

Leptospermum obovatum selected form

If you’re in the market for the best of the best in screening plants, go straight to Leptospermum Starry Night. Do not stop till you have it in your hands.  Several, in fact, if you are needing a hedge. The shiny black-purple foliage on its own would be enough to make you want it.  But it’s in full flower right now, and spangled all over with starry white flowers, it’s a knockout. And the Willy Wagtails and Blue Wrens are gorging themselves on the insects that come to feed on the pollen. Easy to grow, it’s happy in full sun or light shade and will get to around two metres high and 1.5 wide.  You can trim it to whatever you want. Use it to screen out a shed wall, the compost heap, the neighbour’s uglies, or for beauty alone, let it drift along a pathside where you’ll enjoy its weepy tendrils of new foliage.  Or trim it as a front fence hedge and wait for passersby to pester you for its name. It will even fit nicely into a large container with some good potting mix, so for a patio plant, it’s a conversation starter. It really will grow just about anywhere.