Year round flowering: Grevillea ‘Elegance’

This is Grevillea longistyla x johnsonii or better known as Grevillea ‘Elegance’, it is a star performer when it comes to speed of growth, constant flowers and attractive fine leaved foliage, plus the birds adore it!

Grevillea ‘Elegance’ gets BIG that is my only warning, if the label says it grows to 2 metres it is lying. Try doubling that and leave some room for the rest. There are some growers out there who are aptly calling it a tree and from my experience that is not too far from the truth. Although to be a tree you would need to pollard it by pruning the lower branches to give it a trunk but it would probably look lovely like that.

If left alone it will form a beautiful tall dense shrub reaching 4-5 metres high by 4-5 wide. In the image above you can see its spreading habit, this specimen was 4 metres wide and had probably been seasonally pruned as it was located in Wollongong Botanic Gardens.

Grevillea ‘Elegance’ likes a well-drained soil in full sun to part shade, for this reason you can buy Grafted forms of this species, so that it is more hardy in heavier soils. The flower colour can vary slightly from deep pinks as seen here through to a more scarlet red. Whether you keep it in check with heavy pruning or let it go to do its own thing it will quickly screen out those overlooking neighbours and attract birds to your garden year round, if you have the space it is a worthwhile addition.

Posted

27/07/2016

Bird attracting, Drought hardy, Feature shrub, Screening plants, Small tree, Winter flowering

Kath Gadd

Tags:

fast growing, grafted, Grevillea ‘Elegance’, Grevillea longistyla x johnsonii, pink flowers, Red flowers

Comments

13 responses to “Year round flowering: Grevillea ‘Elegance’”

Don Burke

01/08/2017

This is my favourite bird-attracting native plant. It flowers about 9 months of the year and is always full of Wattle Birds, White Cheeked Honeyeaters, New Holland Honeyeaters, Eastern Spinebills, Lewin’s Honeyeaters etc. My grafted plant is 10m tall and 18m wide!!! We trim the sides of the plant to keep it off paths, otherwise it would be over 20m wide. That’s well over 60ft wide.

Reply
1. Kath Gadd
  
  02/08/2017
  
  Hi Don,
  
  Thanks for confirming my point that this Grevillea gets rather large!
  Best,
  
  Kath
  
  Reply
Pip

19/03/2018

This looks like a perfect coastal screening plant however I’m concerned by a warning I’ve seen that it may be a skin irritant, has anyone had a problem with it? Thanks!

Reply
Kath Gadd

20/03/2018

Hi Pip,
Many of the large leaved Grevilleas can be a skin irritant to certain people that are allergic, this usually is only an issue if the Grevillea comes into contact with the skin.
Grevillea ‘Elegance’ would probably be great as a coastal screen as long as the winds are not too strong and it is kept pruned back to maintain bushiness and reduce long weak leggy stems.

Hope this info helps,

Best Wishes,

Kath

Reply
1. Pip
  
  24/03/2018
  
  Thanks so much for your help Kath!
  
  Reply
Vlad Matovic

14/04/2018

We had one of those grafted and planted close to fence. It groove so big, I had to claim up and cut branches above neighbours front yard, it was very messy when in flower. It attracted without a bit my favourite Wattle bird. Unfortunately I had to cut it down because of neighbours garage got flooded thanks to spent flower litter blocking
neighbours drainage. I never expected it to rich tree like shape and really thick trunk. It looked like casurina tree. With ones a year trim I manage to keep it 6×7 metres. I now try to grove more of grevilleas away from fences hoping Wattle bird would come back. Regards

Reply
Mrs M Barrett

17/07/2018

Hi Kath, We put three in & have lost all. They started well & the last one has lasted about 6/9 months.There are a kind of Fir trees over the fence, we tested the soil & it was within the range for Grevillea’s. We didn’t know that it grew so tall & wide, it’s not what it say’s on the label. We live in the Hills in WA & at present the only thing we can think is that the Drainage isn’t enough. What are your thoughts please.
Regards Mar

Reply
Kylie Costin

02/10/2018

When do you prune one of these. I have put one in over the winter and it has almost doubled in side. But its a shame to prune it now in spring as all the bird are coming to the flowers . I’m not sure when to prune and how much do I take off. It is about a metre to 1.5 tall now. I was told to take about a third off. Is this right? Thanks.

Reply
1. Kath Gadd
  
  08/10/2018
  
  Hi Kylie,
  You should wait until it finishing flowering before you prune it, I would probably only give it a light prune first up maybe around 20%?
  
  Best Wishes,
  
  Kath
  
  Reply
Nick

03/01/2019

Hi there kath,

I love your blog with such great insight and you share my passion for weepy plants too! I am redoing my front garden (north facing in Melbourne) and want to get a great native screen going and I like the long soft foliage of these kinds of Grevillea – the longistyla, johnsonii etc. They have a lovely weepy tree of this range that I think was basically unpruned for the last 15 years that looks great at about 4 meters in the backyard of my partner’s parent’s house. What grevillea of this long needled and more weepy form would you recommend for the well-known heavier clays of the northern suburbs of Melbourne? I do like the more tree like form to about 3 or 4 meters, but also need some privacy from the street fairly quickly … in an ideal world. I also recall that one or two of these flower all year round, do you know which? My other question is about roots and plumbing with these trees as we recently spent a few thousand replacing some in that yard! What do you think?

Reply
Sander Egging

27/07/2019

Hi,

We planted a Johnsonii about a year and a half ago in well cultivated soil. It has been watered regularly not overly according to nurseries advice. It has grown tall and wide… but NO flowers at all at any stage! Any suggestions how this is possible?

Reply
1. Kath Gadd
  
  29/07/2019
  
  Hi Sander,
  
  Is it in full sun? sometimes Grevilleas take a couple of years to get going with their flowering. Also, if you can cut back on the watering it will be more likely to flower in an attempt to reproduce when under a little stress 😉
  If that doesn’t work, you could try giving it a little Potash and see if that stimulates flowering?
  
  Good Luck!
  
  Kath
  
  Reply
Mary

05/05/2020

My grevillea Elegance hasn’t flowered since I pruned it last year. I have noticed all the tips where I would normally expect flowers are brownish & a bit crisp. I think it’s really unwell. The tree looks great otherwise. Any ideas?

Reply