Spider Flower Grevillea Lilliane

Lilliane is a shrubby, bird attracting grevillea with fine, divided, needle like foliage and a moderate to fast rate of growth that fills a gap quickly. Its distinctive feature is a long flowering season through the cooler months, when spider type flower clusters open along the stems and honeyeaters, wattlebirds and smaller nectar feeders work them over daily. It is planted as an informal screen along a fence, as a repeated shrub through a native bed, or as the nectar source in a garden planted deliberately for birds.

Soil, phosphorus and the fertiliser bag

Full sun, and soil that drains freely. Those two conditions carry most of the result. It suits temperate and subtropical gardens, tolerates dry spells once established, and needs only occasional deep watering through its first couple of summers to get roots down. Mound the bed if the ground is clay, keep mulch thin over the crown rather than heaped against the stems, and do not enrich the soil heavily before planting. Set plants far enough apart that air moves between them, since a crowded row holds humidity and loses its lower foliage.

The failure mode is phosphorus. Grevilleas and their relatives evolved on old, phosphorus poor Australian soils and cannot regulate their uptake of it, so a standard lawn food, a rose fertiliser or a spread of poultry manure anywhere near the root zone burns the roots and yellows or kills the plant within weeks. Use a native or low phosphorus fertiliser only, and keep lawn feeding well clear of the bed. Wet feet finish off the plants phosphorus misses, so drainage comes first and feeding second.

Lilliane against the other bird plants

Two other natives here draw the same birds. Correa alba is lower, denser and salt tolerant, better on a coastal front boundary or as a clipped low hedge, but it will never screen anything. Acacia floribunda grows far faster and gets far taller, and it is the pick if you need cover within one or two seasons, at the cost of a short life and a crop of seedlings. Lilliane sits between them: tall enough to screen at eye level, long lived enough to be worth training properly, and flowering when the birds most need it. Plant all three together and the garden carries nectar across most of the year. See the natives range.

Tip pruning little and often

Start tip pruning the day it goes in, taking a few centimetres off every few months through the growing season rather than making one hard cut a year. Each tip cut forces two or three shoots lower down, which is how a grevillea stays dense instead of becoming a woody frame carrying flowers only at the ends. Reshooting from bare old wood is unreliable, so never cut back past the leafy growth. Feed after the main flowering flush with a slow release native fertiliser and water it in. Renew mulch annually, keeping it thin over the crown. Do not shear it like a hedge, since flat cuts across the foliage brown off and stay visible for months.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 2 sizes, from 140mm up to 5L, priced from $22.95 to $29.95 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to planting for birds.