Pandanus

Pandanus tectorius, the screw pine of every Queensland beach, standing on its own stilt roots and shrugging off salt, wind and sand.

Pandanus tectorius · Also known as Screw Pine, Coastal Pandanus

The pandanus is the tree that says coast before you've even seen the water, a bold sculptural silhouette of spiralling sword-shaped leaves balanced on a fan of exposed prop roots. Known as pandanus or screw pine, it is native right along our coastline and just about indestructible in the conditions that flatten softer plants.

For anyone gardening near Moreton Bay it is close to a signature plant, because it genuinely wants the salt spray, the sandy soil and the sea wind, and it brings a strong architectural form that reads year-round without any fuss.

In a Brisbane garden

Around the bay and the islands the pandanus is in its element, and its whole value is that it laughs at the things that kill other plants: salt-laden wind, sandy soil that holds no water, and full unshaded sun off the sea. Those stilt-like prop roots aren't just for show, they brace the tree in loose ground and are the single most sculptural thing about it, so we plant a pandanus where that root fan and the spiralling crown can be seen properly rather than crammed into a bed. It's a native icon of our coastline and, on a coastal block, one of the few large plants you can more or less trust to fend for itself.

Two honest notes for the design. First, the leaf margins and tips carry small spines, so a pandanus belongs beside a path or a seat with a little clearance rather than right on top of it. Second, it's a slow tree that branches and thickens with age, eventually reaching well over head height, so as with any tree we place it for the form it will hold in ten years, not the neat plant leaving the nursery. Given a frost-free coastal spot it needs almost nothing from you thereafter.

How we design with it

The pandanus is a specimen plant first and foremost, sited so its prop roots and bold crown carry a view or an entry, and it's the natural hero of any coastal garden design around the bay. One well-placed tree can set the whole tone of a seaside garden before another plant goes in.

As a genuine Queensland native it sits comfortably at the centre of a native garden design, and its salt and drought tolerance make it a backbone plant for exposed, low-input coastal blocks. Underplant with tough coastal natives and grasses that share its love of sand and sun, keep the spiny foliage set back from where people walk, and let its silhouette do the talking.

Where we write about pandanus

Common questions

Gardening by the bay and want a true coastal icon?

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