Hebe Magic Summer - Shrubby veronica

Hebe Magicolors® Magic Summer is an evergreen shrubby veronica with particularly decorative variegated foliage, whose purplish young shoots gradually turn to cream and then silvery green. Happy in mild climates, this small bush adds colour to borders, beds and large pots all year round. In early summer, it is adorned with lavender flower spikes. Slightly tender, it is a good plant for large pots, seaside, and small-town gardens.

Botanically, Hebe Magicolors® Magic Summer is a cultivar belonging to the group of shrubby veronicas, now classified in the genus Veronica, section Hebe, in the Plantaginaceae family. The wild species of the Hebe group are mostly native to New Zealand, but also to Rapa Island in French Polynesia, the Falkland Islands and some temperate areas of South America. They are found in the wild from coastal cliffs to mountain slopes, often in poor, stony, well-drained environments. 
'Magic Summer' is part of the Magicolors® series, a range of shrubby veronicas with particularly colourful foliage, created and distributed by the British nursery The Bransford Webbs Plant Company from the selections of the Dutch breeder H. van Niekerk. 'Magic Summer' is distinguished by its young shoots of a rosy violet, then cream and grey-green, and by a fairly early summer flowering. It is a small evergreen shrub with a bushy habit, forming a rounded, slightly flattened cushion. Its growth is rather slow at first, then regular: in the ground, you get a subject about 60 to 70 cm high and 70 to 80 cm wide in 5 to 10 years. In a pot, especially if the volume is limited, the plant remains a little more compact.
The foliage, which is the main charm of this hebe, is arranged in a cross along the twigs. The small leaves are narrow, lanceolate and leathery with a distinct central vein. At bud burst in spring, the young leaves and leaf margins take on a reddish-purple to bright pink hue, almost purple in cool weather. As they develop, the centre of the leaf becomes grey-green or soft green, while the edges are adorned with a cream to white border. In the cold of autumn and winter, the purplish hues intensify again. 
Flowering takes place from June to July. The inflorescences are short, dense spikes, borne at the ends of the twigs, composed of a multitude of small tubular flowers with four petals. Their colour ranges from lavender to bluish-purple. The flowers are sufficiently rich in nectar to be visited by bees and other pollinating insects.
Like many shrubs in this group, 'Magic Summer' is moderately hardy: adapted to mild coastal or oceanic climates, it tolerates brief frosts down to around –7 °C, –10 °C at most in very well-drained soil and a sheltered position. It tolerates summer drought once established, as well as sea spray.

Hebe Magicolors® Magic Summer is best planted in the sun, to accentuate its colours, near a path or terrace. In a mild climate bed, it can be combined with a hebe 'Red Edge'®, with pastel shades, the silvery Hebe pimeleoides 'Quicksilver' and a Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Black Beauty' which offers dark spikes in late summer. A few clumps of Gaura lindheimeri 'Rosy Jane' will lighten the whole with their bicoloured, dancing flowers.