Not sure, Jenn, but thinking that maybe he's grouping them with grasses. I'm going to talk with him next week about NOT doing this this year, and letting them grow. I can trim out the spent flower stalks to encourage more bloom. I was somewhat horrified myself when he did it the first time. Didn't check with anyone, and he did it a second time last fall. That's when I figured this was absolutely not the right thing to do for this species. Confirmed in the MG class. Patty S.

No real secret to growing the easiest hybrids with Anigozanthus flavidus parentage, but they do prefer both good drainage and regular warm season irrigation. In habitat they even well tolerate seasonal winter flooding and summer wild fires. Full sun, good air circulation, planting out in cooler months to minimize drought stress,(typical nursery container mixes for them very quickly dry out if you aren't adequately wetting the root ball, and probably accounts for most plant deaths). They are extremely easy once established, but don't crowd the foliage or insist on overhead spray irrigation which encourages ink spot disease.

Um, am looking at similar with my lewisias, after an unusually wet East Anglian summer. As I have quite a few of these, I am going to bite the bullet, bare-root them and see if I can do any sort of clean-up. IME, I have rarely been able to arrest the various phytoptheras and such which swim around doing dire deeds, but the only other option I have ever exercised is the defeatist game of handwringo and accumulated guilt so I dunno - how do you feel about some exploratory digging? I have often looked enviously on at the lovely and unusual kangaroo paws but have never even considered growing from seed and they are costly plants to risk here in the UK. Do let us know how you get on as I am in a tear-up phase of changing over to a more waterwise sort of garden...so plenty of brutal culling and composting. Very keen to learn about other dryland plants from SA and Australia, as well as the mediterranean...which will also do well in our not terribly tropicalesque UK summers.

I would agree that there will not be a huge difference in architecture...but in a small, formal space like your bed, I would definitely try to avoid that 'bedding out' look of alternating tall and short plants. My inclination would be to have complementary rather than contrasting plants because there is already a defined shape and structure to the existing bed (iyswim). I also kinda like the idea of growing plants from a similar region (New Zealand/Australia) together...hence coprosma and acaena buchananii (bidibid).