Hebe 'Midsummer Beauty' has lengthy leaves and tall stature for a hebe. Originating in Britain, it should be available in nurseries here in the next year or two.

So what's the catch? We used to be leery of hebes, figuring they were a chancy bet to survive our winter weather. When a couple of years ago my glossy purple H. 'Amy' lived happily through the winter in a pot, it became clear that global warming is upon us, and hebes are now viable all-season plants in the Northwest. A note of caution: Gardeners in Victoria, B.C., who have an enviably warm climate, have gone hebe-happy in the past few years, and when I visited there in February after the cold snap, I saw lots of freeze-damaged and dead hebes. But if you provide good drainage and a sheltered spot for the more tender types, a great many exciting species and cultivars are there to be discovered.

Do you have a sun-drenched southern slope, a pot you want to look lush in all seasons, or a hot, dry spot near the front door? Hebes may well be the answer to a great many garden challenges.

We tend to think of hebes as recognizable little-leafed shrubs with bottle-brush-like blooms. In reality and in all their variety, hebes are the great impostors, the mina birds of the plant world, mimicking other plants. I've learned not to guess when I visit a plant-fancier's garden, because too often I've been tricked by a hebe posing as a boxwood, conifer, heather or even an exotic foliage plant.

Hebe 'Midsummer Beauty' isn't generally available yet in this country (it originated in Britain) but is worth keeping an eye out for at specialty plant sales and nurseries in a year or two. Its shiny, spear-shaped green leaves are at least 4 inches long, lending a tropical flair wholly unexpected in a hebe. And because it grows into an upright shrub 5 feet high covered with light violet fading to white flower spikes from summer to late autumn, this plant has a huge impact in the garden.

To make up for that hard-to-find hebe, these two easy-to-grow evergreen beauties are readily available at most nurseries. H. x franciscana 'Variegata,' has foliage widely banded in cream with purple flowers, and H. 'Amy' is a great favorite for its purple-bronze leaves and large, lavender flowers that seem to persist most of the year after a late-summer flush. Hebe cupressoides 'Boughton Dome' is one of the conifer imitators, forming a compact hump of bristly foliage. A fine ground cover, it so mimics a conifer that it fails to produce a single flower.

I'm so fond of the purple-flushed little leaves of the tough old cultivar H. 'Mrs. Winder' that I've repeated it throughout the garden, where it grows into a rounded splay of foliage perfect to use in arrangements all winter long. In midsummer and again in late autumn the lovely grape-toned foliage is smothered in violet-blue flowers that fade to white.

Hebe odora is the boxwood imitator, with a rounded form and small, dark-green, box-like leaves. Like the plant it so effectively mimics, it can be used to edge beds or trim herb gardens with the added bonus of white flowers. The cultivar 'New Zealand Gold' is a strong grower with branches tipped by yellow buds and yellow-tinged leaves.

A good starter hebe, especially lovely when planted en masse, is H. albicans, which like most hebes hails from New Zealand. Its low-growing foliage is a soft blue-green, and it blooms profusely with tiny pure white flowers for most of the summer.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle free-lance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.

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