Re: More on Hebes (was Happy Plants = Good Plants?)

Tim Longville wrote:
> 
> I'm with Cyndi 100% on this one. (Hello to The Sunflower Sisters, too!
> - a pleasant piece of serendipitous synchronicity...) If a plant likes
> *me*, I'm prepared to like *it*. To hell or the compost heap with
> purism ('I only grow certified Mediterraneans'), plant-snobbery ('I
> only grow the really unusual') and plant-masochism ('I only grow the
> really difficult'). And hurrah for the pleasures of the garden which
> sustains - and to an extent designs - itself.
> 
> Not altogether off the subject: I second David's praise for Hebe
> buxifolia. That's just the sort of plant I like - demanding absolutely
> nothing from the gardener (though it won't object to the occasional
> morsel of food or even, if the mood takes you, to a stylishly
> geometric and formal haircut, supposing you don't mind losing most of
> the flowers) and giving a gentle, solid, understated evergreen
> presence to the garden year after year after year. The old-fashioned
> British abbreviation of 'comfortable' to 'comfy' suits it perfectly:
> it's a *comfy* plant. Here, BTW, it's one of those hebes which
> self-seeds with gay abandon: I have several growing in drystone walls
> and one (which can't have read the textbooks) even out of the
> limestone mortar of an old Victorian brick one.
> 
hi
I just came across a list of the non-whipcord species and cultivars of
Hebe listed by flower colour in my Encyclopedia of Native Plants. Just
for curiosity I counted them and the number came to 76 !

I was puzzled by your mention of H buxifolia which I hadn't heard of,
but
find that this is listed in the NZ Flora as a synonym of H odora (whose
common name is however Boxwood!). NZ gold is a natural variation which
has yellow tips to the leaves, but the development of colour is
apparently variable.

 A favourite of mine is H topiara so-called because it grows naturally
into a neat ball just as though it had been "toped", keeping this
distinctive neat round shape for several years. The roundish leaves are
quite small and a pleasing bluish-green.

Moira
-- 
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
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