Query hebe

There has been some debate here at Brading about whether the large shub, say a couple of cubic metres, outside our front door is a hebe or a spirea. I remember demolishing a hebe hedge outside our front door at Epsom more or less on arrival. A way of marking my territory I now sometimes regret: maybe it would have been better left rather than replaced by hawthorn, pleasure from its flowers in May notwithstanding. While BH knows all about spirea, a group of plants of which I had not previously heard.

This one being a shrub which is much favoured by various kinds of bee and, to a lesser extent, by various kinds of butterfly. The ranges of these two groups are clearly not exclusive.

Hebes (reference 1) appear to be southern hemisphere, particularly New Zealand, evergreen shrubs, while spireas (reference 2) are northern hemisphere and deciduous, part of the rose family. The vote went to hebe, although not yet sure which one. Veronica albicans looks wrong, while Veronica salicifolia does not look right enough, although both have white flowers of about the right size and shape. Work in progress.

PS 1: Archdeacon Grantly would not have approved. Another story brought to me by Microsoft News, this time lifted from the Daily Telegraph:. '... The new precentor, residentiary canon designate, and head of worship and events, has moved to Canterbury after finishing her post as Rector of All Saints with Holy Trinity Loughborough ... [where] Rev. Wendy Dalrymple turned the church into an Intercultural Worshipping Community...'. A return visit to Canterbury, after the scaffolding, is rather overdue, so perhaps we shall run across her.

PS 2: the New York Times, which is very foodie, was not to be outdone and offered a hot dog for $29 which it said tasted a bit like steamed corned beef with a bit of added pep. It came with a very pretty picture which BH described as food porn. See references 4 and 5.

PS 3: last but not least, some months ago, I moaned at reference 3 about another sidebar which had appeared on the right hand side of my Edge window. Another bit of my private space colonised by Big Tech. It has been irritating me ever since, but this afternoon, fortified by a substantial lunch and quite by chance, I have found out how to turn it off: click on the icon second from the bottom. We will see whether this turning off survives a reboot tomorrow morning. And if, for some reason, you should want it back again, click in the gray space by the Bing button top right.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_sect._Hebe. A section of a subgenus of the genus Veronica.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiraea.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/more-statistics.html.

Reference 4: Restaurant Review: Mischa’s $29 Hot Dog Is Obnoxious. It’s Also Lovable. A highbrow-lowbrow stunt right out of Jeff Koons, it’s the star dish at one of the year’s most inventive restaurants - Pete Wells, New York Times - 2023.

Reference 5: https://mischa-nyc.com/.