Eucalyptus problem - red spotty leaves

Kty2

Hiya,
I dont know what is going on with this smallish Eucalyptus tree in my garden. It was planted, I think, 5+ years back by the previous owners of our house. Any suggestions on what is this and I could do? It seems to have spread from the bottom most branch upwards.

Cheers

thevictorian

That looks like the old growth dying off. Unless it's a problem for all the leaves I would just consider it normal for a tree. Evergreen trees leaves don't last forever and with eucalyptus wanting to grow upwards, they shed their lower foliage as they go. If you want them to stay bushy from the bottom you really need to hard prune them down to where you would like the leaves to start. 

Kty2

thank you. No it is ok, I was just worried. Think the tree is like 3-3.5 meters  tall and thinnish trunk. There was branch which was starting like 0.5 m above the ground which was showing quite a few such leaves last autumn. Didnt think much of it, but tied the branch to the trunk and bringing it closer. Now its leaves were touching the leaves of the branches further up... This summer I noticed that most of the leaves of this branch had turned red and yellow with spots and the other lower branches were also turning, so that spooked me a bit, thought its some infection spreading!

Kty2

thevictorian said:

 If you want them to stay bushy from the bottom you really need to hard prune them down to where you would like the leaves to start. 

How hard can they be pruned?

fidgetbones

You can prune  it down to about a foot (30 cm). I would do it in winter as you don't want soft new growth going into winter.

Kty2

thank you.