First Signs of Spring
The grip of winter is beginning to loosen, and with the warming weather the first little grevillea flowers are beginning to show. This planting of grevillea shrubs might seem a strange choice for a Malaysian-style sub-tropical garden. However, we planted these as a means of attracting native birds and animals to our small garden.

G. 'Mini Marvel'

G. 'Red Clusters'

Included in this blog article is a selection of smaller grevilleas which provide late winter colour to the garden. Given the chance to grow unimpeded, these plants would make sizeable shrubs of up to about one metre in height and spread. However, we clip our grevilleas after flowering at the end of spring and again at the end of autumn. This regular pruning maintains the compactness of our plants and reinvigorates them, producing plenty of new leaf and two flushes of intense colour each year: the plants are given no chance to become sparse and woody in nature.

Grevillea lanigera lutea

Other than regular pruning, grevilleas require little other maintenance. Just keep them weed free. For us grevilleas grow well in our heavy clay soils where other native wildflowers have failed. For this reason we intend to seek out other smaller grevillea varieties as understorey plants. Let's hope our local birds enjoy our little grevilleas just as they enjoy our larger varieties... a blog for later! 

 

G. 'Woolly Bush'