Plant I.D

[Hardertobreathe]

An app suggests iron tree -but it looks nothing like any of the pictures I can see- or some sort of Hebe? Does any one know what it actually is please?

I’m stumped with that one but I am a bit rubbish on shrubs. How big is it? Could it be sarcocca?

Looks like one of the larger Hebes.

Looking at your photo, I get hebe seedlings growing in a similar situation.

Purple it’s just below knee height at the moment.

Are Hebes that fast growing?

I’ve cut it down every year as assumed it was just a weed growing in front of the hedge, I just haven’t got around to trimming yet. Maybe I will leave it and see what develops.

I think Hebe - going partly from the leaves and partly from what seems to be a developing flower spike/seed head in the first picture.

I wondered if that was going to open into a flower, there’s on on the top of each stem.

Yes the flower cluster comes from the top of the stem, probably, white or pale purple.

@Beebumble2 that little pod opened up to reveal more leaves but there are now two flower spikes growing either side of it. Is it still looking like a hebe?

That definitely looks like a hebe to me.

I would say so. I’ll pop out and take a photo of one similar in my garden.

The flower spikes haven come out yet, they emerge from the top two leaves.
My leaves aren’t as shiny because it’s a slightly different variety.

The only hebes I’ve had in previous gardens (had plant labels on them) had tiny leaves. I had no clue there were so many varieties!
Awaiting with interest to see how my flowers develop

Should look something like this.

Photo fail!

There's about 90 species of Hebe in the wild, several of those are grown in gardens, and there are different varieties within each species. Hebes rarely hybridise in the wild but there are a lot of cultivated Hebe hybrids (crosses between two or more species). There's a whole Society devoted to Hebes.

Trying photos again

The spikes finally started flowering, I’m glad I left it this year instead of trimming it when we did the hedge it’s growing out of.

If that’s not a hebe, I’ll eat my hat!