Hebe - Does Anyone Know ?
PinkandWhitePoppy
Posts: 50
I wonder if anyone could help please ?
We have a mature hebe (at least 25 - 30 years old - my late grandmother planted it) flourishing in our back garden.
It was looking a bit tatty and overgrown this year so, after waiting until after it had flowered, I gave it a fairly hard prune back about 2 weeks ago.
Right now, there is lots of vigorous new growth all over all of the branches, despite the fact that I reduced the whole hebe by a third. This new growth has come back up to the height of the original plant, before I had cut it back - around 3 feet high.
Where the outer edges of the hebe was before I cut it back, approx 3 feet out from the centre, there are several young hebe's growing. Plus one more which is approx 2 feet away from the centre of the main plant.
The one which is 2 feet away was only around 6 - 8 inches tall 2 weeks ago and is now approx 1 foot high.
The other young hebes which are 3 feet from the main plant were 2 - 3 inches tall 2 weeks ago and are now approx 6 - 8 inches tall.
I'd like to move these new, young hebes across to the opposite side of my garden to form a small hebe hedge along one side. When would be the best time to move them ?
I can go out in the morning to take photos of them if this helps.
I'd also be able to protect these young hebes with fleece if needed.
They would be moving to soil that has had no plants growing there for a long time, meaning several decades, so what soil preparation would I need to do before transplanting these young hebes ?
I've no idea what variety the hebe is, but it has small mid to dark green leaves and is totally covered with hundreds of tiny white flowers from early June.
Thanks 
Posts
I think I'd prepare the soil now and transplant in spring.
A good dig and either some muck, or fertiliser and a mulch.
Are the babies seedlings or have they layered? Seedlings of a cultivar won't be all the same but probably not different enough to worry about
In the sticks near Peterborough
Thanks nutcutlet. I think they have layered rather than grown from self sown seed.
When I was pruning the parent plant, some of the branches appeared to be slightly under the soil at the furthest reach of the branch, i.e. 3 feet/1metre out from the main woody stem (or is it a trunk on a shrub ?) in the heart of the hebe.
The seedlings/saplings are growing where the branches are slightly under the soil surface.
Would the ground where I want to plant these young hebes really, really need to have muck dug in ? I ask because I have arthritis, plus, I can't drive now due to the prescribed pain meds I have to take.
If it is needed, I'll see if someone could come to do that bit for me. Otherwise, I'll have to do it a little bit at a time.
When my Gran originally planted the parent hebe, she was always just a "dig a hole & plonk it in" kind of gardener, so this mature 25 - 30 year old hebe won't have ever been given any " special treatment" ( Lol ! Love my late Grannie
). This old hebe is really flourishing through neglect, lol.
My Mum had only pruned it maybe twice in all those years, but even then, it always grew vigorously and flowered more profusely after its trim.
I'll pop out the back after lunch and take a couple of photos of both the parent hebe and the young plantlets (shrublets ? Lol !
).
Dig a hole and plonk it in Poppy. Lots of shrubs in my garden were done like that.
Make sure they're well rooted before you move them. If there are shoots with roots at intervals on a stem they can be separated to make more plants.
All the digging and muck might make for stronger, faster growing plants (might)
, but yours will be tougher
In the sticks near Peterborough
Besides, you can feed them come Spring with a pelleted organic chicken manure - I do my whole garden with that in April - I can't dig either, and haven't done so for years. I do clear the odd patch of weeds and grass for new bulbs, and scrape around shrubs with a hoe to keep some weeds under some control. Everything else I grow in pots ( and I do mean everything else, fruits, vegetables, trees etc., plus bulbs and annuals.)
Layered plants must of course be the same as their parents, I personally keep them on the mother plant for the winter, detach and plant them on in the Spring - maybe I am further north than you? Anyway, that has worked for me for some fruit bushes and one or two other things. Don't have hebes at present, possibly something that needs correcting!
Thanks again nutcutlet, and you too Bookertoo.
There are 12 baby hebes plus the parent plant. They have definitely layered because I had a poke about in the soil around the babies and there are roots or branches attached to them which are far too big for the size of the plantlets/shrublets.
I'll leave them where they are over winter, but I'm guessing I'll need to protect them from frost ? I'll go to the nearby garden centre this weekend to get some fleece.
I'm in South East Scotland Bookertoo, roughly 12 miles south of Edinburgh
.
Well, I'm shattered because I've been out pottering in the garden and watering the trays of plants in my mini (plastic) growhouses. Tied in my sunflowers as they had outgrown their canes, and asked them nicely to produce lots of seeds
.
I collected seed from my Lobelia cardinalis too.
Thanks again both of you. I'm off now for a soak in the bath then an early night.
Sounds like the end of a good gardening day to me! You are far further north than I am PinkandWhite, I'm in the Midlands, the Eastern side - you'll get alot colder than I will probably. Fleece for plants is a good idea, though those which are still attached to the main plant will suffer less than detached ones.
My blackcurrant has layered itself this year, I shall be happy to have a new productive bush for free.