Pincushion Hakea Hakea laurina

Pincushion hakea is an upright large shrub or small tree with a soft grey outline, and buyers usually arrive at it after being shown a banksia. The flowers explain the confusion: crimson globes bristling with cream styles, held along the stems through the cooler months, and the birds treat them exactly the same way. The leaves settle the question, being long, leathery, blue grey and willow like. It is planted in native gardens, dry borders and bird attracting plantings, and it gives real colour in the middle of winter.

Drainage, sun and the phosphorus problem

This is a south Western Australian plant and that governs everything about growing it elsewhere. It wants full sun, sharp drainage and low water once established, and it resents humid summers, so a raised bed, a slope or gravelly ground gives much better odds than a flat garden bed on the east coast. In heavy Sydney or Brisbane clay it can look healthy and then collapse without warning, which is why grafted plants on a tougher rootstock are the safer buy in those cities. Plant in autumn or early spring and leave the root ball sitting slightly proud of the surrounding soil so water runs away from the crown. The failure that catches most people, though, is fertiliser. Like other members of the protea family it cannot handle phosphorus, and a handful of standard NPK scattered over a garden bed is one of the more common ways an established plant dies, usually within weeks and with no obvious cause at the time. Use a low phosphorus native blend or nothing at all, and keep lawn fertiliser well away from the root zone.

Pincushion hakea or gymea lily

Doryanthes excelsa is the other native here for hot, open, well drained positions, and the two work at different scales. The gymea lily is a permanent piece of architecture with a flower spike as an occasional event; the hakea is a shrubby, grey framed plant carrying its display through winter and bringing honeyeaters with it. If your soil is heavy east coast clay that stays wet, neither the hakea nor a graft may be worth the risk, and lemon myrtle is a far more forgiving native for that ground. Choose the hakea for dry, sunny, sandy or gravelly gardens where winter bird traffic is the point. Browse other natives.

Pruning after the birds finish

Prune once flowering ends, cutting the flowered stems back by a third or so to keep the plant compact and set up the following season's flowering wood. Do it every year, because hakeas do not reshoot reliably from bare old wood, so a plant left to sprawl for a decade cannot be brought back with one hard cut. Feeding is optional and, if you do it, should be a controlled release native fertiliser marked low phosphorus, applied lightly after pruning. Grafted plants throw shoots from below the union, so rub those off as they appear or the rootstock takes over. Mulch with coarse material, keep it clear of the stem, and avoid rich composts around the base.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 200mm up to 400mm, priced from $29.95 to $249.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to Australian native trees.