Modern Grevilleas

There have been some stunning new grevilleas released over the past 10 years, and luckily for us many of the new hybrids available to the public have been bred by the team Kings Park and Botanic Gardens. The new hybrids flower on and off all year round they are compact, drought tolerant once established, and require little fertilising and pruning.

For gardeners who live on coastal sands with alkaline soils some varieties of grevilleas struggle, leaves become yellow, stems die back, and they stop producing flowers. A number of grevilleas prefer more acidic soils with some loam or gravel and would grow better in the hills, the southwest or wheatbelt.

The following are grevilleas that perform well in coastal sands when a small amount of compost and clay is mixed in with the sand, with a wetting agent applied at planting time to ensure a good strong start.

Grevillea’ Cupids Dream’ is one of the Kings Park hybrids that flowers for 12 months of the year. The flowers are a stunning pink with white buds. I have planted this on the verge near the driveway and roadside, an area that gets blasted with the heat all summer and it’s a true survivor.

Grevillea’ Scarlet Moon’ is another Kings Park and Botanic Gardens hybrid boasting vibrant silvery-green foliage and white flower buds which open to become spectacular scarlet flowers that persist all year round. ‘Scarlet Moon’ reaches 1.6m tall and 1.6m wide and attracts honey eaters.

Grevillea ‘Hot Lava’ is a relatively new hybrid with a tight mounding shape and fine linear leaves mid-green in colour, which are the perfect backdrop to the red and cream flowers which appear in profusion during autumn through to spring. A compact shrub only 70cm high and 1.5 wide making it ideal for small gardens.

Grevillea Moonlight is an oldy but a goody with elegant creamy-white to pale lemon-yellow flowers appearing year-round. Moonlight makes a great screening shrub growing to 4m in height and 3m wide. It is hugely popular with a variety of birds and heavy in nectar.

Grevillea Liliane has bird attracting dainty pink spider like flowers and dense leaves with weeping branches. The flowers seem to pop out of the branches. Liliane grows to only 1m high and 1.5m wide and flowers in spring and again in winter.