Flower of the Week: Butterfly Bush

As garden shrubs, buddleias are essentially 20th century plants. They are profuse bloomers with gray-green to dark green leaves and large, fragrant 6-8-inch-long flower heads.

The following post was submitted by  staff member Maggie Wiles.

Flower color varies widely, with white, pink, red, purple, orange or yellow flowers produced by different species and cultivars; they are rich in nectar and often strongly scented. They are commonly known as “butterfly bushes” owing to their attractiveness to butterflies, and have become staples of the modern butterfly garden. They are also attractive to bees and moths.

Some species commonly escape from the garden and colonize in dry open ground. It is frequently seen beside railway lines, on derelict factory sites and, in the aftermath of World War II, on urban bomb sites. This earned it the popular nickname of “the bombsite plant” among people of the war-time generation.

In recent years, much breeding work has been undertaken to create more compact buddleias, most recently the production of dwarf varieties, which are also seed sterile—making them a much more "polite" plant in the landscape.

This plant wants full sun and tolerates some drought and wetness. Suitable soil is well-drained, loamy sand or clay with a pH preference of acidic to alkaline. Butterfly bush is essentially pest free, deer resistant and a butterfly magnet.

It is a good choice for naturalizing, as well as an integral component of the perennial border.

Some of the dwarf varieties can also be used in containers. For best flowering cut back the entire bush in early spring to about one third of its original height.