Buddleia - Butterfly bush is a lovely shrub with wonderful blossoms that attract Butterflies and Hummingbirds. The most commonly grown Butterfly bush is B. davidii. This plant is a native of China and in our mild climate stays evergreen. Buddleia can grow into a large shrub depending on how much water it gets and the variety. This shrub comes in many beautiful colors, most of them are hybrids and sterile. I grow several of these lovely shrubs in my little garden. The first one was planted by my landscaper and is now 8 years old. It has lovely purple flowers and grey leaves. The flowers look similar of those of Lilacs, that is why it is often called "Summer Lilac", but they lack the sweet fragrance. This one is the Chinese native and self seeds itself and I have several growing and dig them up to give to friends. One of the seedlings came up in the front of our house and it is the strongest and tallest of them all growing to 12 ft. with huge leaves and huge flowers, doubling in size to its parent plant. It took me a while to figure out this mystery. When I attached it to my irrigation system, I accidentally put it on the line of my Cannas bed that gets more water. In my back yard I treat these plants like low-water plants and give them an infrequent, deep watering. That keeps the plants in manageable size and blooming just as well. In my backyard I grow several different species of this genus in different colors. In the middle of my yard I planted B. davidii "Alba" with lovely white blossoms. Next to my porch you find a plant with almost blue flowers and very gray leaves and on the other side of my yard is a plant with deep pink flowers. These varieties grow to 4 - 6 ft. in size. I also planted a variety called "Black Knight" with deep purple to almost black flowers and "Harlequin" a variegated variety with beautiful green leaves with white edges and purple pink flowers. Unfortunately these plants seemed not to be as strong and long lived as the other varieties. They became very woody and did not flower much and I finally took them out. My neighbor had the same problem with his "Black Knight". I have not had any problems with my other Buddleias. They never had an insect attack or a fungus or anything else. I planted another beautiful shrub, B.x weyeriana, a hybrid between B. davidii and B.globosa. My variety is "Honeycomb" and has unusual flowers, yellow balls growing in clusters. Another variety growing in my yard is B. marrubifolia, the Woolly Butterfly bush. This one is native to Texas and the North of Mexico. It is a true xeric plant and does not receive any additional water after the first 2 years. It has lived now for eight years and is doing just fine. It has very attractive silvery, wooly foliage and small ball-shaped orange flowers that appear in masses in early summer and it has grown to 4 ft. tall. The silvery foliage is very attractive growing between my other shrubs in different shades of green. I only noticed, my Butterflies prefer the other varieties. If you have a large enough yard or a big space to fill, you might want to grow B. alternifolia - Fountain Butterfly bush, another native to China. It can grow to 12 ft. in heights and width and has arching, willow like branches. It only blooms in spring with profuse clusters of blue purple flowers. This is the only Buddleia with some fragrance.

B. davidii blooms on new wood and if left unpruned the leaves and flowers become smaller and smaller. The plants need to be cut back by two thirds in late winter or early spring. This keeps the leaves and flowers big and the shrub in a manageable size. Buddleia does well in most soils that are lean and have good drainage. They like it hot and require full sun. A good gravel mulch is helpful and attractive. I have never fertilized mine but they get my nutritious pond water from time to time. You might want to fertilize them with fish emulsion once in spring. Every spring I end up with a lot of cuttings from my shrubs. The one in the front yard fills two black yard bags alone. What to do with the cuttings? If you have room, compost them. The garbage bin is not the place for them. Yard scraps do not belong into the landfill. If you are like some of my neighbors and there is a wash close by, you can drag them over the road and dump them in or close to the wash, and that is exactly what some of them do. I have not been able to educate these people yet despite attempts. The wash is maintained by me and my husband Mickey and from time to time we have to go and drag everything back out. Yard waste does not belong in or outside a wash. Besides from being unsightly it introduces alien seeds and plant pathogens into a native environment. Ok, what to do with the cuttings? If you live in the City limits and pay for the garbage removal, the City has a wonderful program for you, the Compost Facility, phone # 458-7530. Call on a Tuesday than set the bags, Cacti needs to be in boxes, where you would put your garbage can and on Wednesday they pick it up for FREE, doesn't that beat dragging it over the road to the wash? As a plus you can buy wonderful compost and mulch from them for a little fee.