Can anyone suggest an ID for this Hebe?

[HClase]

Hi everyone, it's been some time since I visited this site and in the meantime we've had to give up our acre and move into a combo, fortunately one where the other residents have allowed, nay encouraged, us to make a small garden which is more of a border than anything Alpine.

However, one  of the plants we left behind was a Hebe that was given to us years ago by JohnW, and has proved to be quite hardy here in St John's Newfoundland, where the temperature is regularly down to about -15C and can go as low as -24C.   Last summer I took a few sprays up to the Friends of the Botanical Garden and they have turned the cuttings into a dozen or so very sturdy plants which are going into the Fall fund raising sale.  Naturally we'd like to give them their proper name if possible, but JohnW didn't know and the Hebe Soc weren't able to help.

After about 15 years it has grown into a low bush about 1 m high and 1.5 m across, it flowers in late summer here (July - August) and the flowers are ice blue and it has shortish, (up to 2 cm) narrow leaves.  Here are a few pictures taken some time ago by Todd Boland who had one of the same.  (My own pictures are difficult to find, we haven't finished sorting after the move!)

[Maggi Young]

Hello Howard, how very nice to "see" you again. I cannot help with the Hebe ID  but had to say welcome back! 

 I wish you much happiness in your new home. Lucky neighbours, I think, to have you to beautify the place, well done!

[Oron Peri]

Have you considered Hebe divaricata?

[HClase]

Thanks, looks similar, but the leaves are narrower, the flowers are pale blue not white and it's too hardy!  Anything that needs the climate of Nelson is very unlikely to survive here, as I said the temperature is regularly below -10C here in winter.  Of course it could be a hybrid - we know nothing of its origin

I heard of one that grew in mid Sweden, maybe that's the same one.

[John85]

When you say it can withstand -15c,is that even without snow cover?

[HClase]

Yes, probably John.  I cannot be sure, but it can be as cold as that without snow cover at times and over the 15 or so years we've had it there must have been one or two nights as low as that.  There has been a bit of die-back on occasions, but the plant itself has recovered well.

[johnw]

Howard - No one I have contacted has been able to put a definite name on that Hebe.  I see nothing in the Hebe book here that matches it.

The story is as follows:  In late winter 1996 a received cuttings in the mail from a Danish fellow. He had tested it for quite awhile and said it was bone hardy in Denmark. At that point I had never been to Denmark and assumed it got cold there so assumed that it would do well here.  He had never been to NS and thought it would as well.  He had received it from someone in Sweden who had tested a lot of hebes and declared it the "very hardiest hebe growable in Sweden".

Friends here still grow it, haven't tried it in Hfx.; it did for awhile in southern NS but the soil was too heavy and it went the way of Daphnes.

I must say that H. divaricata looks to be closer than any of the other names mentioned before.

Maybe someone can recommend a contact at Goteborg; surely they'd have it in their collection.

Do you have the dwarf golden Hebe that Ethel Lohbrunner gave me in Feb 1996?  It's done well here in scree consitions.  Got one at Bunchberry but Philip McD spied it when he was here in June and I gave it to him to take back to Vancouver.  Can always get some more as they've plenty.


johnw

[HClase]

Yes John, I agree that H. divaricata does look quite like it, but if it's only found in the north of S. Island of NZ it doesn't sound hardy enough.  But according to the Hebe Soc. it's hardy in the UK.  I'll accept that very pale blue might be called white by some - it depends on the light.  (By the way Kew says this name is unresolved - whatever that means!)  Maybe it's a hybrid of some sort involving divaricata.   Funny you cannot grow it in Halifax when it grows here - of course most of our soil is home made here anyway, there's not much of the natural sort.

No we don't have the dwarf golden Hebe, but don't really have room for any more in our new location.

Thanks for the full story, I vaguely remember it now.