I really like the vivid colors on Black Knight and Royal Red. Royal Red is not a red but a deep, deep rose. Black Knight is very dark and looks wonderful with colorful perennials in a mixed bed. I'm really partial to Black Knight because I like the color of the flowers and it is very fragrant.

Linda

Here it is, just coming into bloom:

What I do not like are the dwarf cultivars (e.g. Blue Chip) - the flowers look so stubby, can't compare to the long, graceful, panicles of traditional buddleia.

Do you all have problems with reseeding?

Does dark knight stand out from a distance?

I also have Peacock which has a nice fat flower but almost the same color and it is one of the dwarf sizes.

a2zmom, your bush is very pretty and so 'bushy'. Mine is more open and has fewer branches in it's second year and I've cut it back to the ground each spring. Do you tip prune or did it just grow that way naturally?

I've had Butterfly Bush for about 10 years and have never seen a seedling in my garden.

Thanks for the 'Lochinich' idea, Great Plains. I guess the color is close to what I have and I'm looking for a color that will be more noticeable. Like trovesoftrilliums, this one blends into the surrounding flowers and is not as noticeable. I guess it doesn't help that I've planted it near Perovskia which has similar color foliage.

I don't like 'Blue Chip' either mxk3.

I was just thinking, there should be blooming butterfly bushes at the nurseries. Maybe I should make the rounds this weekend and see what I can find.

Thanks,
Cheryl

(Now that I think of it I believe esteemed GW member Kevin is growing it for the first time this season)

Cheryl

Linda

So I will keep the 'Pink Delight' but I'm still debating on the 'Black Knight'. I'm going to look at a few more nurseries to make sure there isn't another one I want. I did decide I didn't want any of the others, I have 'Peacock', 'Miss Molly' has smaller flowers than I wanted, 'Blue Cliip' and maybe 'Nanho Purple' had those blunted flowers. So that was a fruitful trip.

I'm not familiar with the ones you listed PM2, so I'll have to look those up. Where are you going to plant it - i.e. what are its companions and what effect do you want it to have? I have a big (BIG!) butterfly bush in the front bed that I wanted to use to add height to the bed. So we don't cut it down as far as recommended in spring. We only cut it down to 3' or so. When the new growth gets to be about 3' tall, we cut that back by 1/2-1/3 to force the sideshoots to develop to make a dense, bushy top. As the flowers start fading we keep it deadheaded to continue to force the sideshoots to develop and flower. That keeps it in bloom for a long time. This spring we also edited out some of the younger, thinner stems, leaving the more sturdy woody tree-like stems to enhance the tree-like presence of the plant. A pink clematis climbs into it and blooms in late spring. This is what it looks like today:
.

It can be fun to 'break'/ignore the pruning 'rules' if you have a different vision of what you want the plant to do and butterfly bush is easy to play with :-) We have a smaller pale blue one on the south side of the driveway. It's not nearly as interesting as this one.

I don't tip prune, just wack it down to about a foot in spring. The leaves have a silver cast so all in all, it's a very pretty, very graceful bush.

Last year it didn't get pruned so it bloomed much earlier and it was huge. Not tall so much as really wide.

A bit monsterous imo.

Where do I want to plant it and with which companions? Well…I’m the type of gardener who wants a plant, buys a plant, then thinks about what to do with it. (g) Gets me in a lot of trouble too. I’m going to have to think about that for awhile.

A2zmom, I’m like you, I want that shrub to keep on pushing out more blooms so I keep it deadheaded. That’s probably why I don’t get any seedlings either.

I still want a white one, but I don't have space for a big one like White Profusion.

If I was to add any more of the ones I have, Velvet Buzz would be my #1 choice.

I will say that the hummingbirds and butterflies don't seem to care and visit all of them, although Black Knight and the NOID red seem to be the slight favorites for the hummers (maybe the color is the reason? Who knows).

Cheryl

I think my original Buddleia is a seedling because the flowers are not very large, attractive, or long lasting.

I’d never heard of the Buzz Buddleias, so thanks for that report on them, eclecticcottage.

Woody, you make a very good point about placement. I sometimes get so enamored with a particular plant that I’m happy with it on it’s merits alone and then later I realize in the overall picture of a border, I’m dissatisfied with it’s placement. I don’t think Butterfly bushes are easy to fit into a design. I like the way you have used yours. I’m sure my sunny spaces are less than yours, so I try to squeeze too much into them.

I would like to hear about how others have used their buddleias in their over all design. I am just sticking mine in with a lot of other full sun perennials and especially next to a Perovskia, it is getting lost.

It's a little dark out there, but at least it stopped raining, so here are the flowers on the ‘Pink Delight’ and the ‘Black Knight’…

Cheryl

Lovely planting a2z!

I'm going to be making some changes to it this fall, but I guess that's the way of all gardeners.

Cheryl, good luck with your new Flutterby.

a2zmom, Great border. I like the way you used the Buddleia to anchor that bed. I bet it gives you some privacy from the street. I change my front bed every year, pretty much…lol. But in my own defense, I think the bed kind of changes itself every year and I just respond. (g)

I like it although clearly I can't give my final judgement until another year has passed and I can see what potential it has. So far, because of its small size, it would be difficult to compare it to any of the standard, larger buddleias. In fact, because of the small size it really doesn't look like a shrub, but more like another perennial in my garden. It certainly lacks the arching grace of the larger ones. That may change with time. I'll see.

prairiemoon - Yes, I have tried these in pots overwintered inside. I have an old coal cellar in my basement which doesn't freeze, but stays very cold in the winter - perfect for overwintering plants that want a cold, winter rest.

I gave up after a couple of years. The plant was in a largish pot, but still I don't think it was large enough for the buddleia to really do well. It came back each spring, but didn't really do all that well. Maybe a much, much larger pot would have worked better, but that becomes difficult to deal with carrying it up and down the basement stairs in spring and fall. It was simply too much of an unpleasant chore for me to consider it worthwhile.

Maybe it would work better to grow it in the garden and then dig, wrap the rootball in plastic and store inside for winter. Some people do this with brugmansia. To me it sounds like a very unpleasant chore, but if you're a person who doesn't mind the work, who knows?

Kevin

I'll try to remember to post a photo later today assuming it warms up and I don't have to put on a snowsuit to go outside. Good grief! It's in the 40's this morning! Weird, weird summer!

prairiemoon, how true that is!

After having said that, I realize I bought a standard Gardenia this spring to put in a pot for the summer which I will be attempting to winter over. lol

Good luck with your ‘Petite Blue Heaven’. I love the name, I hope it lives up to it for you.

I have the a/c on this morning, Kevin. Definitely an odd summer here too, though.

Kevin

Thanks,
Cheryl

Right now, it's about 18 inches tall and about 2 feet wide, but I just planted it in May and when I got it, it was in maybe a 4 inch pot. I must say, it's done a lot of growing in a short amount of time, but not enough to say what it might be like next year. It certainly is blooming much more than I thought it would for the first year. This next blooming which is just forming now looks like it will be heavy.

Kevin

From May 2012 until October 2012 it grew to 3 feet in width and probably a bit more in height.

I see what Kevin means by saying they don't have the grace of the big buddleias, but are very satisfying in their own way. I don't know how my climate will affect growth. We have a lot of sunshine, but very dry conditions. I planted mine in front of honeysuckle Goldflame, and behind Anouk lavender. Everything looks pitifully small with lots of bare ground right now.

Cheryl

I without reservation recommend this particular compact variety.

Even if BB's don't overwinter in your zone, they're not expensive to replace when/if needed and easily available at garden centers, often nice large, robust plants loaded with blooms are less than the price of dinner for two :0)

I completely agree and am happy I have this one. In particular, I really like the foliage color. Better yet, when I was looking at my plant, there was a butterfly feeding on the flowers which is why I guess they're called "Butterfly Bush". I've seen so few butterflies this season it was really nice to see one here.

Kevin

The garden is south facing in zone 5 NY. The BB and ornamental grass stays. Right now I have purple coneflower, black eyed Susan's, Shasta daisies, day lilies (have to go, I don't like them), had some bee balm that didn't do well, and some balloon flowers. Bare spot in this picture is where my daisies and some more black eyed Susan are.

The garden is seen from all sides. Please help.

A2zmom I love your front garden. What do you have in it?

This is the opposite side.

After a hard winter, they were all slow to come back, and Black Knight was the slowest, although, it was the smallest and was planted in the fall.

Pink Delight, does have huge fat flowers and the shrub itself, without any pruning help at all, had a very symmetrical, densely branched form. Very noticeable from the others. But, I haven't seen as many butterflies land on it, but saw some hummingbird moths. Not as fragrant, but has some. And I really don't like the color.

I don't understand that because in the photo above, it looks like a solid clear pink, but in the garden this year, it has been sort of a lavender pink, which I'm not very fond of. Because of the other attributes, I plan to keep it at least for another year and will be moving it -- again. [g] I thought I might combine it with something with a different color that might liven up the color of the flowers.

Purple Knight, I can't say much about. It barely survived the winter, was not a vigorous grower, had about a handful of blooms all season. Giving that another year, without moving it.

The 'Adonis Blue' that doesn't look like the photos - was the only established Buddleia in the garden so it made it over the winter pretty well. Although it does look a little spindly and I've been faithfully deadheading, which has to be done daily because the flowers go so quickly on the bush. It has more fragrance than the others and I've seen many more butterflies on it. The first flush of blooms were a good size and almost resembled the photo, but after that they are pretty small. I forgot to take Woody's suggestions to cut it back to 3ft and then in half again to make it branch out more and plan on doing that next year.

I wondered, since it does bloom heavily, if anyone has tried to fertilize it like you would a rose? I always heard - not to fertilize - so just wondered.

How did your Buddleias do this year?

Here's when it first started blooming....

Lilsprout, that is a very eye-catching color. And nice long flowers too. Thanks for posting the picture. Nice shot of the Hummingbird Moth, too!

I'm seeing a lot more butterfly moths this year. They are so busy, they could care less if your right up next to them snapping pics! Not the norm....

Just the same, I think my butterfly bushes in the past have lived up to my hopes and are a real plus in the garden.

Mxk3 - Which bush has the reddish undertone and which the blue/purple?

I wanted to offer an idea about your really lovely little blue one (I'm going to try to find one of those; which mail order did you use?) I figure if you can get a teeny mail order woody to bloom like that in its first season, you must have amazing gardening dna and/or former riverbed location.
Anyway, it almost looks like a little lilac- w/ larger, better blue, flowers. The idea: you might enjoy growing a small flowered clem up through it.
mindy where are you in z.6?

I didn't say, I could take cuttings. [g] I can take them, but keeping them alive over the winter? Nope. I'm ready for a rest from gardening when the gardening season is over.

You mean the photo of the light blue flowered Buddleia in the beginning of the thread? I ordered that from Bluestone in 2010 so, no, it was not a year old. It was supposed to be 'Blue Adonis' which is a really navy color, and looks nothing like the one I received. They replaced it for me the next year and it still didn't look navy. So I kept it and that is a photo of what it looked like in 2013. Would you believe that this year, it was much darker? It was not that pretty light lilac/blue color at all.

The 'Pink Delight' and 'Black Knight' I bought last fall and planted them in October and I was just happy they came back this spring. The Pink Delight had a ton of blooms on it all season, in it's first year, although it was about a 2ft tall shrub. It's always been my experience that Butterfly Bushes put on a lot of growth in one season and always bloom.

The PD and BK were on sale, end of season and I wasn't looking for them, I just ran across them locally and not sure where. Maybe Russell's?

I like the idea of growing a Clematis up through it. I may try that. Thanks. :-)

You're not a fussbudget, you're probably a detail oriented person, which we really need in many situations, along with those who the details hardly register while they are negotiating the big picture. ;-)