How big does a macadamia tree get in a Brisbane backyard?

Over many years a garden macadamia reaches roughly 6 to 12 metres tall and about as wide, so it's a full shade tree rather than a shrub. Plant it well clear of the house and paving and give it room for the canopy it will carry in ten years or so.

Do you need two macadamia trees to get nuts?

Not strictly, but you'll usually get a better crop with cross-pollination, so where there's room we plant two compatible varieties. A single tree in a suburban street will still fruit, helped along by neighbouring trees and bees, once it's a few years established.

[ Plant Profile ]

Macadamia

Macadamia integrifolia, the Queensland nut, a handsome native shade tree that happens to grow one of the world's great crops in your own backyard.

Macadamia integrifolia · Also known as Queensland Nut, Bush Nut

The macadamia is the rare tree that gives you evergreen shade, glossy good looks and a harvest the whole world buys, and it's ours: Macadamia integrifolia is native to the subtropical rainforests of south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales. People know it as the macadamia or Queensland nut, and a single mature tree in the backyard can keep a household in nuts for months.

It reads first as a proper shade tree and second as a producer, which is exactly the right order, because you plant it for the dense green canopy and the honest fact that you'll be picking nuts off the lawn each autumn is the bonus.

Type

Evergreen native nut tree

Sun

Full sun for best cropping; tolerates part shade

Water

Moderate; water well while young and while fruiting

Soil

Deep, rich, free-draining, slightly acidic

Mature size

6–12 m tall and wide in a garden over many years

Flowering

Long sprays of cream flowers in winter to spring, then nuts in autumn

Frost

Best in a frost-free or sheltered position

Maintenance

Low to moderate; expect leaf litter and hard-shelled nut drop

In a Brisbane garden

The macadamia is genuinely at home in a Brisbane garden because this is its country, an evergreen rainforest tree that gives glossy year-round shade, cream flower sprays through winter and spring, and a crop of nuts each autumn once it's a few years old. It's a real tree though, not a shrub, and left to grow it reaches well over head height with a broad canopy to match, so we plant it for the shade and spread it will hold in a decade rather than the modest plant in the pot, and we give it a deep, rich, free-draining spot to do its best work.

Two practical points shape where it goes. The nuts fall in autumn inside a hard shell, which is a delight to gather but a nuisance underfoot on paving or beside a pool, so we keep the canopy over lawn or garden bed rather than over hard surfaces and paths. And like any spreading shade tree it drops leaf litter steadily and casts real shade, so we set it well clear of the house and give the grass beneath it a break with a generous mulched skirt. Placed with that room, it's one of the most rewarding natives you can grow.

Macadamia tree with glossy green leaves and clusters of round nuts in a Brisbane backyard in a Brisbane garden setting

How we design with it

We treat the macadamia as a productive shade tree, sited for its canopy first so the nuts are a yearly dividend rather than the sole reason it's there, which makes it a satisfying anchor in a family-scale Brisbane garden design. One well-placed tree shades a play space in summer and feeds the household in autumn.

As a true local native it belongs naturally in a native garden design, pairing genuine provenance with a useful harvest, and it suits a larger block where its mature spread has room. Keep it over lawn or bed rather than paving so the falling nuts are easy to gather, give it depth of soil and a frost-free aspect, and it repays the space handsomely.

Macadamia tree with glossy green leaves and clusters of round nuts in a Brisbane backyard detail

Where we write about macadamia

Native garden design, made for Brisbane. · Design guide

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