
Attract beautiful butterflies to your garden with a butterfly bush.
Planting, Growing, and Pruning Butterfly Bushes
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In general, the butterfly bush is a Zone 5 and south kind of plant. It would be better to look for native plants that will thrive. You might find this database helpful:
www.wildflower.org/plants/
Its May 24th and my buddleia bush has already bloomed and the blooms have gone brown (I live in the Los Angeles area). Should I cut it back now and will it bloom again in the summer if I do so? The plant is about 1.5 feet tall.
Hi Katie,
Just remove the spent flowers to encourage additional blooms during the summer.
My blooms on my butterfly tree are dying as soon as they bloom. Otherwise the tree looks great. It is in a big pot. Not sure what's going on.
Hi, I have 2 beautiful butterfly bushes... they have each grown to almost 5 feet tall... just this morning I noticed wilted leaves and upon further investigation, one of the branches has broken off. It's about 3 feet tall with lots of beautiful purple flowers. Can I just make a clean cut at the bottom and stick it back in the soil. Or should I cut it at the bottom and then shorten the branch significantly and put it in a pot? I want to try to save it if at all possible. Please guide me. I read through the comments and see about a new cutting and putting it in rooting hormone but this stem broke off... can it be saved? Thank you!!
I have a few buddleia cuttings & would like to know how to grow shrubs from them. Wirh thanks.
Hi Christy,
It's best to cut the branch off where the brake is. You can then propagate any softwood cuttings (new growth) from that branch. The big woody branch is not going to grow back.
Black Walnut Trees, will the bush grow within the root zone of them?
Linda. I do not have any hands on experience with black walnut, but I took a tree science class in college and was told that the leaves of black walnut are high in acid or another toxin I don't exactly remember witch. But they tend to kill grass and other plant life including sprouting walnut trees when they decompose. So it would most likely help if you rake any leaves that fall from your Black Walnut tree and not use them in your compost if you are trying to grow anything underneath them
It is not the leaves of the black walnut that will cause you a problem. It is the root that kills other plants. The roots release a toxin in the soil to surrounding plants that will kill them. Few plants are immune to black walnut toxins. The only plants I know that are resistant are ginseng and black raspberries.The odd thing about black walnuts is depending on the weather and the rainfall determines the amount of toxins released by the roots. That is why plants will live next to a black walnut tree just fine one year and then die the next year. If you ever look at the ground around a black walnut tree you can tell where the major roots run. I have a garden near a walnut tree and you can draw a line through my garden to the tree. The plants will either be stunted or dead when the weather gets hot and dry. Plants a few feet away will be fine.