March - Hebe

The genus Hebe contains more than 100 species and subspecies of evergreen shrubs, many with large, beautiful flowers.

Native to New Zealand, but happy here in a sunny spot, many species will produce handsome foliage, ranging from shiny green to grey, silver, bronze, and even violet.

Hebe’s don’t usually require pruning and that’s a good thing because it can be a bit tricky to prune them in such a way that the plant retains its shape.

As the plant gets older or if it’s grown in a shady spot, it can become leggy as growth is concentrated away from the centre towards the ends of the ‘branches’.

If your hebe has become old and straggly and you prefer not to lift it, you can prune it back hard to within 30 cm of its base but really I would only recommend this as a last resort because some hebes find it difficult to recover from such drastic action.

A good tip is to keep hebes lightly clipped from an early age. This is best done towards the end of March. Hebes can suffer from broken and damaged branches after heavy snow so it’s worth keeping an eye on them at this time of the year.

If you’re looking to propagate your hebe have a go at layering. Basically you bend a branch down to the ground after removing a strip of around 25mm long through a leaf bud in its underside.

Peg with thick wire or place a stone on the branch to keep it in place and in 12 months, roots will have establish themselves. Once the roots are growing well you can separate the new growth from the donor plant by cutting with a clean knife or secateurs before replanting or potting on.