Hebes are low-maintenance evergreens that retain their ornamental foliage throughout the year.
The plant is truly a stunning addition to any garden, yet it is often underrated.
It’s true that often times garden designers tend to overlook and hardly seek after hebes when they’re looking for something to incorporate into their projects.
In fact, hebes are beautiful, versatile, and sophisticated but relatively easy to please.
Hebes deserve more recognition
Hebes are low-maintenance, elegant plants that work well in a variety of landscape settings, including as a shrub border, a ground cover, or a short hedge.
Hebes bloom for an extended time, perhaps all year round in warm climates, with their flower colours ranging from pink, purple, blue, and white.
Even their leaves vary in colours, too, ranging from dark green to pink and variegated. Beneficial insects, especially bumblebees, may rely on them as a late-season nectar and pollen source.
They’re a great way to keep your garden private and protected while adding a splash of year-round colour to the landscape.
Hydrangeas are not the only chameleons of the flower world here
While hebes are widely recognized for their foliage, not everyone is aware that some species undergo a spectacular colour change when the seasons shift from summer to winter.
They change colour depending on the temperature and light intensity they are placed in.
The plants may display shades of green, golden, or variegated throughout the summer. But they can take on stunning shades of red, pink, and purple when winter strikes.
It’s as if you were given brand-new plants every season without having to replant anything!
The “Magic Colors” Hebes Collection
To spice up your evergreen garden, go no further than the Magic Colours Collection, which features four unique colour-changing varieties of hebes.
Not to mention, you’ll always feel compelled to introduce them to garden guests because their names all sound so catchy.
Hebe ‘Heartbreaker’
Hebe ‘Heartbreaker’ is a fantastic variety that will put on a colourful display throughout the year.
It is a wonderful compact evergreen shrub that guarantees to bring colour and character to the garden all year long with its striking cream-edged variegated green leaves.
It is popularly grown as an attractive potted plant but also looks sensational at the front of garden borders.
During summertime, their leaves turn darker in colour to pass all the attention to colourful clusters of mauve flowers. But the real treat is when winter hits and the temperatures drop, the Hebe Heartbreaker foliage then takes on a gorgeous vivid pink blush.
Hebe ‘Frozen Flame’
Hebe ‘Frozen Flame,’ with its refined ashy green foliage and creamy white veining at the edges, is an excellent addition to the evergreen framework of your planting designs.
Once the temperature drops, the pinkish-purple colouration of the tips and borders becomes more pronounced.
As the name clearly implies, this hebe variant brings much-needed warmth and vibrancy during cold, gloomy winter months when other plants are beginning to recede.
Hebe ‘Wild Romance’
Hebe ‘Wild Romance’ is a bushy, compact evergreen shrub that is fantastic for beds, borders, and containers – particularly placed in full sun to partial shade.
This hebe variety boasts cream-edged, dark green foliage that turns to deep burgundy at the end of each stem when going into the winter months. It then lightens in spring to a beautiful pink tint.
Until the first frost of fall, the summer is highlighted by the dense racemes of purple flowers.
The colour cycle then repeats itself.
Hebe ‘Magic Summer’
Much like the Hebe ‘Frozen Flame,’ this ‘Magic Summer’ shrub produces grey-green leaves with white margins and a flush of lilac-pink.
As the weather cools down in the winter and spring, the colour deepens to a more intense purple-red. The real “Magic” of this hebe, however, is the explosion of lavender-purple blooms above the luscious foliage during spring and summer.
What a truly eye-catching piece for a sunny garden in the summer!
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