Clerodendrum Starburst

The Most Underused Spectacular Shrub in the Tropical Garden

It is genuinely puzzling that Starburst Clerodendrum isn’t in every tropical and subtropical garden in Australia. Clerodendrum quadriloculare delivers one of the most dramatic late winter flowering displays of any large shrub in cultivation, backed by foliage that earns its place through every other month of the year — and yet it remains, inexplicably, underused. Consider this your introduction to a plant that deserves far better than the obscurity it currently occupies.

The Display

Late winter into early spring, the Starburst erupts. Each flower head is a dense cluster of dozens of slender, five centimetre long blooms — white with pink, arranged in a starburst formation that gives the plant its name and, at full expression across a large shrub, creates an explosion of colour that is genuinely stunning. The fragrance draws butterflies and nectar feeders in numbers, adding movement and life to a garden at exactly the time of year it needs it most.

Year-Round Foliage

Between flowering seasons the foliage holds the fort with considerable style. The leaves are bold and attractive, deep green on top with a strong, glossy purple underside that catches the light with every movement — the kind of two-toned effect that reads as deliberately designed in a mixed tropical border and provides year-round colour interest without requiring a single flower.

In the Landscape

As a feature plant it commands attention. As a hedge it is spectacular — dense, fast growing and dramatically ornamental in a way that a standard hedge plant simply isn’t. It will send up suckers that need to be pruned back periodically, which is a small management task for a plant of this performance. Give it full sun for the best flowering display, reasonable moisture while establishing, and the room it deserves to build into the large, generous shrub it wants to be.

Native to New Guinea and the Philippines, it is entirely at home in the tropical and warm subtropical garden — a plant that has been waiting for the recognition it deserves.

Gardening for Wildlife – El Arish Tropical Exotics Plant Nursery