Hollywood Hebes
This collection is a clever marketing ploy, playing on names and comprising both new and old varieties. ‘oarie Antoinette’, bred back in the late 1980s, is popular for its dark olive foliage with pretty wine-red new growth and stunning cerise flowers.
‘orphan Annie’ makes a great splash of colour with its luminous cream and green foliage – its main asset as flowers are few and pallid in comparison.
Compact growing ‘Marilyn Monroe’ sports ritzy silver-edged foliage with elegant maroon tips and masses of medium-sized magenta flowers in autumn.
‘Santa Monica’ forms a compact, rounded bush with dark foliage and beetroot coloured flowers.
Living up to its name as one of the best new hebes is ‘Beverly Hills’, which forms a neat, metre-high, ball-shaped shrub, its emerald foliage overlaid with gorgeous rich violet flowers.
Famous in Europe
They may be considered a little humdrum here, but hebes are hot in Europe – they’re even breeding them there!
Recent varieties to come from that part of the world include ‘Black Panther’ with lovely dark green foliage backed with deep purple, and sprays of gorgeous deep violet flowers; ‘Galway Bay’ of proportionately smaller dimensions all round, with green and purple foliage and abundant mauve flowers; and ‘Champion’, which is only 25cm high, with tiny foliage topped with dainty blue flowers – perfect for a courtyard garden or container.
Famous in Auckland
The hebe ‘Wiri’ series, bred by Jack Hobbs, curator manager of Auckland Botanic Gardens and a man passionate about all plants, are a great choice for warmer climates. Jack’s breeding programme aimed to produce plants with increased disease resistance and longer flowering, together with enhanced aesthetics and overall performance.
The results speak for themselves as the ‘Wiri’ series has become a tremendously popular choice for gardeners and landscapers alike, who enjoy the range of forms and versatility hebes offer.
Alpine Hebes
As the name suggests, this group grows naturally in subalpine or alpine regions around the snow line. Leaf adaptation is a defining characteristic.
oany species have thick, leathery leaves, while others are of the whipcord type, so-named for their unusual scale-like leaves, which are tightly compressed up the leaf stems to resemble cypress foliage.
Both leaf forms protect plants from harsh conditions and drying out.
Flowering is less spectacular than temperate hebes but foliage effects definitely compensate, especially in some of the whipcords such as the gorgeous, coppery coloured ‘James Stirling’.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
