In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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January 30, 2008

A Hebe fan, after all

I’ve never been a Hebe fan. I always dismissed them as squat little shrubs with purple or blue flowers that big box stores sell to every new homeowner in the county. People would grow them against the house in hard soil, and they always looked a bit pathetic.

Apparently, I’d never seen them grown well. That is, until yesterday.

I went to take photographs in the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden at the UC Davis Arboretum, and a dazzling display of purple caught my eye. Brilliant spikes of purple flowers. Dark purple foliage. A graceful plant growing harmoniously with its neighbors.

It looked like a Hebe. Yikes, it IS a Hebe.

According to the Sunset Western Garden Book, they’re native to New Zealand and closely related to Veronica. Prune them after the bloom, and if they get leggy, you can cut them back severerly and they’ll resprout and be neat and bushy again.

I may just try one in my garden someday.

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