Re: Hebe salicifolia

bridget lamp wrote:
Hello, all!

Hope you're happy gardening in your gardens!

I'm looking for some advice about Hebe salicifolia. The hedge I have has become quite leggy and it is
collapsing on itself. I have been cutting back the
branches that are falling over. I'm just worried
about how much it can take? It has already started to
sprout back from the base from the 1st round of
cleaning up I did this summer. We can get a hard
frost here in Seattle and it did snow here last year,
so I'm a bit leary on how tender it is.

Hi Bridget
In my area this a particular Hebe is regarded as a weed, because of its spindly open growth and not very exciting flowers. It is very common on waste ground around the Wellington district and sometimes occurs spontaneously in gardens, presumably from self-sown seed..

I can't really imagine it forming a good hedge and it will certainly need frequent cutting back to keep it reasonably sturdy and bushy. If at all possible I suggest trying to do your pruning during summer, preferably early summer, so that the new growth has a chance to harden up before cold weather. I should be very surprised if you could harm it by hard pruning, but should you lose any plants by being too drastic this is a Hebe which should be very easy to regrow from cuttings. In any case it is not very long lived in the wild and might not do much better in cultivation, so i imagine it would be at best rather short-lived.

Moira

--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ.     Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES ADDED 4/Feb/2004

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