Grevillea victoriae has been doing fine through all these snows in Fremont (Seattle). After the Jan 20th snows melted off, the plant seemed to erupt with more blossoms. My hummingbirds spent more time next to our house during the snow and cold. If you do not encourage upright growth - i.e. if you have horizontal growth looking for sunlight - snows will weigh G. v. down to the ground. I have removed some horizontal shoots. I do knock snow off when it seems like we will have a lot of wind while the snow is on the branches - just in case branches would break with lots of snow Since the branches seem to be flexible enough to bend to the ground, they might not break. My plant has been in the ground for many years.

As I have tried to make clear previously, I don't dispute that high P levels are relatively more toxic to Proteaceae than to other plant families, but I do believe that many rainforest grevilleas are less susceptible than WA species. Again its a relative thing, and I have certainly found one that isn't. A landscape supplier dumped a truckload of potting mix in my garden, close to some trees but about 6 metres from a G. baileyana. Some months afterwards it died, and on digging up the mix it was full of proteoid roots! Retrospectively, I have realised I have had a much higher proteaceae failure rate since using that mix, so I must find out what's in it. The seller told me it was fine for natives - you'd think that at my age I'd know better than to trust a salesperson, but my problem is I can remember back when most of them were trustworthy. Tony

As far as I know, hybrids between different species of Kennedia are unknown in the wild, nor are there any named garden hybrids. Come to think of it, interspecific hybrids hardly seem to be recorded among any of the pea-flowered legumes except perhaps in the broom tribe (e.g. Cytisus, Genista, Laburnum), suggesting that there are pretty strong barriers against effective pollination between species. Compare this with genera such as Callistemon and Grevillea, in which hybrids occur frequently when species are brought together in cultivation.

Aussie natives are adapted to growing in very poor (australian) soil so I either use low p commercial aussie native fert or I just go with compost and/or blood and bone (without added p) fertiliser. they really dont need much in the way of fertiliser since they have adapted to our terrible soils over lots of time. homemade compost will usually give them everything they need imo. I dont know what grevilleas you are growing but with your climate you cant really go wrong with the west aussie types since our climates are very similar, although some WA grevs (particularly the perth varieties) grow in very poor fast draining sandy soil naturally so with your clay soil, some varieties may prefer a better draining soil than clay.out in their natural habitat, they basically rely on leaf litter while growing in some really nutrient poor soil so there is no need to spoil them, they are great survivors in heat and poor soil conditions. At the moment, I have a number of olive leaf grevilleas, and also some ellendale grevillea. Unfortunately my robyn gordon (hybrid) did poorly and kicked up their toes so I stick to the genuine wa species now and dont bother with the hybrids. over here, the flowers are very attractive to our native nectar eating birds such as various honeyeaters, wattlebirds etc. you might find in your neck of the woods nectar eaters might be interested too such as your hummingbirds? Im not sure though since our nectar eaters land and dont hover when they feed but they probably have similar beaks I would think.