Posted by richtrav on 3/9/2011, 10:28 pm, in reply to "Re: Most red gums not looking so hot in San Antonio"
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Overall it's better adapted to the soils and climate than var camaldulensis, there seems to be less chlorosis and decline vs most camaldulensis the farther south you go in the state (though some forms which originated from Lake Albacutya such as SC25 seem to do pretty well). When it comes to cold, though, var obtusa has invariably frozen to the ground in the big freezes even in Brownsville whereas some clones of straight-up camaldulensis have only had branch dieback, especially in the drier Laredo area. Subcinerea has not been extensively used but I think it will prove the best for our general region and should generate even hardier individuals. Forms from the Flinders Ranges particularly interest me, early results show them doing well in South Texas though none were exposed to the recent cold up in San Antonio. I'd love to have an amplifolia x cam. subcinerea cross if anyone were to ever do it (I think amplifolia has been successfully crossed with plain old camaldulensis in Florida -where's Gus? he'd know). Plain amplifolia doesn't seem to like far South Texas, at least the one I tried. Papuana and several Melaleuca spp are far easier.
Occasionally you'll see a stray microtheca at the bottom of the state but they are rare, in theory they're the best adapted euc of all but a number die off within a few years for unknown reasons. I've had a form from Jericho Qld around for 15+ years in SA but it is pretty tender, it was severely injured last year and probably went to the ground this year. Victrix also seems more tender, with some foliage browning even in the upper 20s. The coolibahs could probably benefit from a good screening program here.
I may write up a separate report on how Australian plants fared in deep South Texas if anyone is interested. A number were injured even though the temperature never dropped below 27F (it hovered around 29-30F for a very long time though). The problem is the lack of hardening at the bottom of the state, most plants want to keep growing all winter long.
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