Hebe Blue Gem

Since the Hebes are flowering at the moment I thought I'd do a post about one of them. 

Hebe Blue Gem is one of the old varieties, I think we've had them in each garden we've owned so that's going back a long time. We originally planted two here, the plain one and a variegated one which soon reverted to green. We removed that one because it was right beside the plain one so it looked like a half-hearted attempt to grow a formal row. The original plain one is now about two metres wide and over a metre tall (six and a half feet by about four  feet). I give it a light trim once in a while to keep it looking neat. The flowers are purplish blue and seem to vary with the light. Hebes are easy to grow from cuttings. In fact we now have a new plant accidentally propagated by layering. I found it while doing some pruning a few years ago. It had grown from a low branch that had become covered in mulch. When I saw how much of a root system it had developed I thought it was worth keeping and since I had an empty space elsewhere in that garden bed I transplanted it there. So here are some photos of the original hebe and one photo of the new one.