Pittosporum 'Wrinkle Blue': what it does that the other Pittosporums don't
Quick answer: 'Wrinkle Blue' is the narrow one. It will hold a 3 to 4m screen inside about 1.5m of width, where 'Stephens Island' spreads to 3m and wants the room to do it. Blue-grey rippled leaves, purple spring flowers, and the same rule as every Pittosporum: free-draining ground, or it rots.
There is a gap on most sections that nothing quite fits. Nine hundred millimetres between the side of the house and the boundary fence, a strip of lawn nobody mows properly, and the neighbour's bathroom window looking straight down it. You want something green in there. You have no width to give it.
That is the job 'Wrinkle Blue' was bred for, and it is the only one of the Pittosporums we grow that does it without being fought every year.
What makes it different from the other Pittosporums?
The shape. Everything else follows from the shape.
'Wrinkle Blue' grows narrowly pyramidal, upright, with the branches held in close rather than reaching out sideways. Our own listing puts it at 4m high by 1.5m wide. Leafland's ten-year figure is 3m by 2m. The Plant Company give it 4 to 5m by 2 to 3m. Those are not three different plants, they are three different amounts of clipping and three different soils, and the number that matters to you is the low one: this plant will stand tall in a strip where most screening natives cannot.
The foliage is the other half of it. Small blue-grey leaves with a rippled, wavy edge, held on dark stems, so the whole plant reads paler and softer than a plain green kohuhu at ten paces. In spring it carries small purple flowers with a honey scent that the bees find before you do.
How much width do you need to allow?
Plan on 1.5m at the base and trim the sides once a year if you want to hold it tighter.
A plant sold as narrow is narrow for its species, not narrow forever, and anything left completely alone for fifteen years will get away on you. But the difference is real: hold 'Wrinkle Blue' at 1.2m through the middle and it stays dense doing it. Try the same thing with a fast spreading cultivar and you spend the whole summer cutting into old wood and looking at bare patches.
Two places where the width decides the job:
Along a driveway. A screen that puts on 30cm of width every couple of years takes it out of the turning circle. Measure from the fence, not from the plant.
Against a boundary. If half the plant ends up over the line, half the trimming is somebody else's decision.
Where does 'Wrinkle Blue' fall down?
Wet ground, same as the whole genus.
Pittosporum wants free-draining soil and it will die slowly in ground that stays damp. Slowly is the problem: the plant sits there looking a bit off colour for a season and a half before anyone accepts what is happening, and by then the roots are gone. If your strip is the one the downpipe empties into, or the flat holding ground you get on the lower Clutha terraces around Balclutha, either fix the drainage or plant something that wants wet feet. Carex secta will sit in water all winter and not care.
Shade is another consideration. Sun to semi shade is the range. Put it in a dark side strip against a two-storey wall and it will stretch and thin at the base, which is the one part of a screen you cannot fix later.
How does it compare to the other Pittosporums we grow?
Five cultivars, five different jobs. They are not all interchangeable and they are not equally hardy, which is the part most listings gloss over.
'Wrinkle Blue'. Narrow and upright, roughly 4m by 1.5m, blue-grey rippled foliage. The one for tight strips, tall screens and anywhere you need height without width.
'Stephens Island'. Another good one for a medium hedge, around 4m by 3m but easy enough to keep trimmed. Grey-green, tidy habit, excellent in coastal wind. It is a form found on Stephens Island in the middle of Cook Strait, showing characters of both Pittosporum tenuifolium and Pittosporum crassifolium, possibly a natural cross with Pittosporum ralphii.
'Tandara Gold'. Grown for the leaf, not the shape. Small rounded leaves with a golden yellow centre and a dark green edge, to about 3m by 2m. Rated hardy to around -10°C, but it does better with shelter from cold winter wind, and the gold colour is best in full sun. This is the accent plant of the group.
'Frankie's Folly'. A natural ball at roughly 0.7m each way. Bright lime green, medium growth, frost hardy, drought tolerant once it is away. Low edging, repeated shapes down a border, pots by a door. No clipping needed to keep the shape, which is the whole point of it.
'Green Ball'. The other dwarf ball on our list, with similar characteristics to Frankie’s Folly.
What does it cost and how far apart do they go?
Our own listed price for 2.5L grade plants for all of the above plants is $16.50 plus GST.
For comparison, as at 7th September 2026: Goughs Nurseries sell Pittosporum in 2.5L at $9.50 each, or $9.00 for twenty or more. The Plant Company list 'Wrinkled Blue' from $22.01. Leafland price PB18 at $56, 25L at $112, 35L at $160, 45L at $212 and 60L at $240, all excluding GST. Those larger numbers are specimen grades, a different purchase to a hedging line. If you want a 2m plant on day one, that is what a 2m plant costs.
Spacing follows our usual rule, half the height you intend to hold the hedge at.
Held at 2m: 1m centres.
Held at 1.5m: 750mm centres.
Held at 3m as a tall screen: 1.5m centres.
The Plant Company publish 75cm to 1m for 'Wrinkle Blue', which lines up with our rule for a hedge kept at 1.5 to 2m. That is not always the case with published spacings, so it is fair to say so.
A 20m boundary held at 2m therefore takes 20 plants, not the 30-odd a tighter figure would sell you. The tighter row closes maybe a season sooner and then spends the next twenty years competing with itself.
When should you plant it?
Autumn is the pick down here. The soil is still carrying summer warmth while the air cools off, so the plant puts roots down instead of pushing top growth it cannot support, and it goes into the first hard frosts already anchored.
Winter planting is fine too, mid-winter included. The one to be careful with is a late planting heading into a dry summer, particularly on the Canterbury plains where the nor'wester pulls moisture out of soft new growth faster than a young root system can replace it. Plant late there and you have signed up for the watering.
Because everything we grow is containerised, standing outdoors and uncovered on the pad through a Southland winter, the plant carries its own roots and mix and can go in almost any month. It also meets the frost and the wind in the pot before it ever meets yours.
Common questions
Will Pittosporum 'Wrinkle Blue' grow in a pot?
Yes, and the narrow habit suits it. A large container by a door or either side of a gate works well. Potting mix dries out far faster than garden soil, so summer watering becomes your job rather than the weather's.
Can I cut it back hard if it gets away on me?
Trim it regularly and lightly rather than letting it go and then cutting hard. Pittosporum responds well to shaping, and the safe window is a light trim in late spring and again in autumn.
Does it drop leaves or make a mess?
It is evergreen and sheds a few small leaves gradually rather than all at once. Nothing that troubles a path or a pool surround.
Is it any good in a shelterbelt?
For a garden-scale windbreak or a screen along an exposed boundary, yes. It is wind hardy and coastal tolerant. For a proper farm shelterbelt you want something taller and faster in the back row and this in front of it.
Is 'Wrinkle Blue' a true native?
It is a New Zealand-bred cultivar of kohuhu, Pittosporum tenuifolium, which is a native. If a planting plan calls for eco-sourced local provenance stock, a named cultivar will not meet that requirement, so ask before you specify it.
If you have the width, plenty of things will screen a boundary. It is the sections where you do not have the width that narrow the list down to about one, and this is it.
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