2. The other 2 red-flowering Summer Beauty are still in pots - can I plant them hard up against the white one already in the ground for a mallee effect?

3. Maybe these hybrids should not be bought by anyone, for they are created from 3 plants - E. ficifolia, E. ptychocarpa and 'grafted onto a vigorous, hardy rootstock'. Birds and insects will cross-pollinate between 'Summer Red/Summer Beauty' and local generic trees, and disrupt the genetic makeup of further plants in local bushland, ie, a hybrid will take seed and grow, formed of my bought Eucalypt hybrid and the native trees in the national Park down the street. Thoughts?

I don't believe there is all that much rocket science to pruning natives. I always do my pruning after flowering, any time between January and April (when ever I get round to it). But the only reason why a restrict myself to this period is that there does not seem much point to cutting off all the flowers.

I like to cut off the lower branches of my Eucalyptus ficifolia and my Acacia pycnantha in order to establish head clearance as they grow. I guess my only precaution is to not to excessively reduce the foliage in the process but that is more about appearances.

I sometimes cut shrubs down to their stump if they get to staggly and, unless they are particularly stressed, they always bounce back very quickly.

If they can survive Ausy bushfires they can survive and overzealous pair of shears.

So you do have to be careful about the non-indigenous Eucalypts you use.

Eucalyptus ficifolia is not a problem around Melbourne at least as far as I am aware. In fact last I heard Eucalyptus ficifolia had been changed to Corymbia ficifolia, and we have no indigenous members of the Corymbia genus around Melbourne.