General Culture:

Winter hardy to USDA Zones 9-10. Best in moist, fertile, well-drained soils in full sun. Established plants tolerate some soil dryness. In St. Louis, grow in containers that must be overwintered indoors in a bright cool sun room or greenhouse.

Noteworthy Characteristics:

Native to Australia, scarlet bottlebrush (also lemon bottlebrush or red bottlebrush) is a large evergreen upright tropical shrub that will grow to 10-15’ tall in its native habitat. It is commonly grown as a specimen or hedge in frost free areas such as southern Florida and parts of southern California. It can also be trained as a tree to 25’ tall. In containers in northern climates, it more commonly is grown as a 3-5’ tall shrub or trained as a small standard. Flowers feature numerous bushy bright red stamens in rounded to cylindrical spikes (to 4” long) that resemble bottlebrushes. Flowers bloom intermittently throughout the year in frost free areas, but more typically in summer in St. Louis. Flowers are attractive to bees. Lance-shaped to narrow-elliptic leaves (to 3” long) emerge coppery before maturing to medium green. Leaves have a lemony scent when bruised, hence the species name. Genus name comes from the Greek words for beautiful (callis) and stamen (stemon) in obvious reference to the flowers.