Backyard & hedge favourites
Blueberry Ash
Elaeocarpus reticulatus
The blueberry ash is the native tree Melbourne gardens reach for when they want a tall, slim screen along a boundary without a hulking hedge. Left alone it makes an elegant small tree; planted in a row it forms the leafy green walls between neighbours that Jordan is regularly asked to shape and maintain.
How to spot a blueberry ash
Flowers
Small bell-shaped flowers with delicately fringed edges, like scraps of fairy floss, in white or pink through spring and early summer. Some trees carry a faint aniseed scent.
Berries
Bright blue, marble-sized fruit that follow the flowers and hang on for months, often on the tree alongside the next season's blooms.
Leaves
Narrow, glossy and finely toothed. Look for the odd single leaf turned brilliant red among the green at any time of year; it's one of this tree's most reliable tells.
Form
Slender and upright, typically 5 to 10 metres in gardens, naturally denser when grown as a screen or hedge line.
Bark
Smooth to finely rough, grey-brown, on often multi-stemmed trunks.
Where you'll see it around the south east
Boundary screens and native gardens across the bayside and inner east, often planted in rows along side fences. It turns up in council reserve plantings too, and older single specimens stand in established native gardens from Sandringham to Kew.
Worth knowing
Despite the name it isn't an ash at all: it belongs to an ancient rainforest lineage that reaches up Australia's east coast. The blue berries are eaten by native birds, and a screening row doubles as a feeding corridor for honeyeaters and silvereyes.
Easily confused with
Lilly pillies are the other default native screen, but they have smooth-edged leaves, fluffy white flowers and pink to magenta berries. The blueberry ash's fringed bells, blue fruit and scattered red leaves separate it at a glance.
Think this is your tree? Or still not sure?
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