Good luck, I don't know if we still have the kind of resident expertise in [commercially planted, whether native or not] California flora that we used to.

I have tried to grow these in pots since I saw them in-ground on Isole di Brissago in 2010. They are very fussy in the east coast climate and a couple died, but I have one still alive, that occassionally blooms. Obviously the conditions are very different here so I'm not sure what advice I can offer. I saw some in Davis CA in 2016 and they looked happy...and a few others in the Bay Area, but they didn't strike me as being super common in Nor Cal. In the typical Berkeley or Oakland garden, you're 10X as likely to see an Aloe.

I was already sorting through my digital pics last night for another reason.

Fields of Anigozanthos at Cranbourne Botanic Garden in 2016.

Aussie flora already looks bizarre, but this was like being on the surface of another planet! They come from a family, Haemodoraceae, that very few of us would have encountered; the closest relatives we know would be the Tradescantias aka 'spiderworts'.

That's a Persoonia bush in the background btw, not the acacia you might think. And they have the amusing common name of snottygobbles!

Weste I don't have time to post more pics but looking through, I notice some of these kangaroo paws, such as one called 'Landscape Violet', have wierd faded looking flowers. That's literally how they are supposed to look. Has this one always looked like this? Might be a feature, not a bug.

As they are unlikely to winter over in my climate (as in westes) I grow these in containers as a seasonal planting, IME, they want full, all day sun, a well draining soil and only sufficient water to keep them going.

The sunlight will determine the flower color intensity but older flowers do fade out. Cut them back as necessary to remove and promote new flower production.

@UpperBayGardener (zone 7) All of the ones at the nursery were in full bloom with intense colors. All of them started to fade out after I planted into real soil.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) Do you think my plant is in a cycle where the flowers die? I am just concerned that they were all in brilliant full bloom, and as soon as I plant them, the flowers all fade.

Westes, the way you're talking about this, you make it sound like the blooms have actually faded with age, which is normal. Not that it produced new ones that opened in faded colors.

@UpperBayGardener (zone 7) Honestly, this plant is difficult to understand. I don't have enough experience with it to understand which case I am dealing with:

1) Old blooms fade, and new blooms fail to appear

2) New blooms simply never fully develop their color

Which blooms are dying? Which ones are emerging? Which ones have already peaked and are on their way down? They honestly look similar to each other.

What is clear is that from the nursery, they had brilliant color. As soon as I planted them, the colors faded, and no new blooms emerged to replace them, whereas the ones in pots stayed more brilliant (but even those potted plants are not as brilliant as they were at the nursery).