In NC which is warmer than MO dry summers take most of the toll except in shaded areas. It is hard to beleive that they are invasive.

When you plant it in the spring (full sun all day) be SURE to water it in VERY well and keep it moist for the first few months. Not enough water is a common mistake people seem to make when planting new plants. Give it a few weeks in the ground then start to fertilize at half the recommended rate on the fertilizer package. I planted one last fall and this year she took right off. I have another one I have to plant this fall now as well.

I'm in Zone 5/6 and they dont do well here.They usually die. I'm in NE PA.

Well, I for one can't kill them. I have them all over my yard, all get a good amount of sun. I had heavy clay soil but amend in peat moss. For the most part, they all have a decent amount of drainage. I only fertilize once a year, if at all, with a dose of Miracle Gro. My oldest is 12 years old, and is planted away from the house, so it get's no protection from the elements. It's actually planted in heavy clay; I didn't amend in anything when I initially planted it. It was planted when I first bought my house and I knew nothing about gardening...

I've had mine for years now. I even moved it after a few years because it was too big for the the spot it was in! I live outside of Buffalo so they can take prolonged periods of cold. It is in poor clay in full sun, but a raised area so it has good drainage for clay. I think they don't like winter wet. I'm betting that kills them quicker than the cold.
Remy

i have had at least a dozen of them .... THEY ARE NOT WINTER HARDY IN Z5 .... period ... you think i would have gotten the clue sooner.. lol .... anyone who claims otherwise.. is not z5 ... probably a micro climate higher ....

one mild winter.. a couple came back .. otherwise ... zip...zero.. nada ...

save your money ...

look into butterfly weed ... link below ...

dont get caught up in trying to attract b-fly's ... by getting certain plants... its all snake oil marketing .... heck .. if you really want them.. get rid of the lawn.. and plant wildflower seed .... and they will come .... but to suggest that a single plant.. targeted to them.. is going to increase your population of them.. is just an excuse to charge you twice as much for it .....

plant a garden.. and they will come ... certain.. borderline plants.. are not going to bring more ....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

I think you should try to grow it. It may not be the most reliable plant in zone 5 but I know there are a lot of people that ARE growing it there and even a few in zone 4 with mulch and good luck.

Your yard may be close to zone 6 if you factor in global warming and the fact that it doesn't stay cold for a long time in Missouri in the winter. When it drops below zero, it doesn't usually stay there for more than a night or two at a time. Is that true for your area too? I'm in SW Missouri so it could be different here. It will also make your nights a little warmer if you're in the city.

Plant in full sun and mulch around the base to keep the weeds away. Don't cut it back in the fall. You CAN cut it back in the spring but I wouldn't for a couple years until it gets established well. You don't really need to when it's little anyway. Don't plant it in a low spot where water may pool. Also - Cover it if we get a late frost/freeze in the spring for at least the first year or two until it's established.

I have Pink Delight and can always count on seeing butterflies there in late summer. I've had a couple others that didn't draw many butterflies. One was Nanho Purple I think. I moved them but didn't keep them watered after transplanting and they died.

These are marginally hardy in zone 5. I have two, though, that I've had for 10 years. The trick, as others have already said, is to prune in the spring, NOT in the fall.

It's really worth it, if you want butterflies in your garden - while I do get some on the other flowers in my perennial garden from time to time, the buddleia gets many more visitors than any other plant, and when it gets them (August and September) there are often many of them at one time. My plant is close to the sidewalk in the front of my house and I always get people walking by who stop there just to watch the butterflies.

I'm in the same zone as remy in WNY in a suburb of Rochester. We're probably somewhere between zones 5 and 6. I disagree that you can't keep them alive in colder areas, but you have to enlist a few precautions. I've only lost two over many years. I've lost more perennials than butterfly bushes. One was placed near my mailbox which got the direct strong winter winds and lots of icy snow from the plow and I'm sure it couldn't handle that exposure. The other one I killed by transplanting it too late in the season. I've discovered that planting them in a sheltered area in your yard or near your house will keep them alive in colder zones. The added benefit of planting them closer to your house is that you can observe all the butterflies, hummingbirds and hummingbird moths they attract. And, yes, whoever said to water them in dry spells is right. People tend to overlook their shrubs, but I think you need to treat these plants like a woody perennial rather than a shrub in colder areas. People say "cut them back in spring" but that could mean different things to different people and some springs are colder than others. I prune mine only when I see new signs of growth in very late spring, which for me could be as late as mid-May some years, the same as I do with lavender and Russian sage.

Planting them as early in the summer as you possibly can gives them a good head start before winter. If in doubt, a nice layer of mulch before winter never hurts, too. I don't buy butterfly bushes that are on clearance in the fall. Unless they're priced very cheaply, it's too risky. If you want a butterfly bush, go for it. But wait until spring to plant.

A lot of people who live in colder zones auch as 5 think their Butterfly bushes die, but they do not. In zone 5, they will die back to the ground but just cut back the old wood in the spring and the plant will come back from the roots--and very quickly, I might add. Here in my new zone this isn't as much of an issue, but when I lived in zone 5 I had complete dieback to the ground annually. The roots always came through for me.

Jen

Nancy makes a good point about cutting back. I do cut mine back only after I see new growth in the spring. One year it happened really late and very low on the plant! I thought it had died at first.
Remy

Thanks for all the detailed advice. That's very helpful! I was planning on just getting one, but I think I'll try getting more than one, and planting them in different places, in case that will make a difference in survival.

Deanna

Thanks for all the detailed advice. That's very helpful! I was planning on just getting one, but I think I'll try getting more than one, and planting them in different places, in case that will make a difference in survival.

Deanna

Sorry about the duplicate messages. I got an error message, so I didn't think it posted my message.

Deanna

I do fine with BB's here in my cold zone 5. I have Nanho Blue and Black Knight. They definitely do die back to the ground, but that's fine.

I think it is key that they DO get cut back in early spring. A friend in warm Ct Z6 never cut hers back and it never resprouted.

Personally I don't wait to see new growth, although I have read you are supposed to. If I am near them and have loppers in hand anytime after March, I go for it.

I treat my caryopteris 'Worcester Gold' the same way. Also my new Lespedeza will get added to my list of "dieback" plants on my spring to-do list.

You might also want to try a Vitex/Chaste Tree. I grew one from seed a few years ago, and although it's still relatively small (not in full sun), it's really gorgeous (foliage & blooms) and the bees & butterflies love it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Daves Garden - Vitex

I have butterfly bushes in z5 and they do comeback. Some years it is VERY late. Two years ago nothing resprouted until July. I was sure they were dead until I went to dig them up!! They survived and are improving each year. We get quite bitter cold here and at my mother's house. Her butterfly bushes are more than 8ft tall each summer. They are about 10yrs old now, lavendar, white and yellow. The white is fully exposed to all wind and cold sweeping in from the west. Faithfully returns each year. She actually gets seedlings sprouting from the flowers of the white one.

In my garden, further north, the white is the largest and oldest. White and lavendar seem to be the toughest survivors. However pink and even the dark purple Black Knight return well, just never get quite as large in height.

I put rose cones with open tops over the two new butterfly bushes in the open area last winter. I want some bushes out in that area of the yard. Still slow starting but both survived and flowered well this summer. These were the $1.50 3" pots of spring in 2007. I do water them regular since they are near the big oaks which drink the rain up.

I would definately try the BB in your area. Maybe baby them a year or two. Expect late start times, prune when the buds start breaking leaf. Could be late June or July, but most do survive snow and cold to return. Drying wind is what I am protecting mine from.

I have heavy clay soil and western PA is normally a wet climate. The pink, yellow and dark purple bushes I have had normally "peter out" after a few years. However, the Buddleja davidii 'Lochinch' I have self sows a few new plants every year, so I am always finding new ones that I can transplant (when they're young). I can share seeds of this variety after they ripen if anyone is interested.
Marcia

Here is a link that might be useful: Lochinch at Bluestone

as I was deadheading mine today (about a month later than usual), I wondered if deadheading it helps keep it alive for me, as I have not have BB's ever die on me.

Perhaps if the energy is sent to seed producing, the plant is not restoring energy to the roots???

of those Z5'ers that have lost BB's, do you deadhead in summer/fall?

i belive that it has to do to the stress of the plant but right now i have buddelja daviidi different types of varieties and they are growing just beautifully in the tropics they kinda grow dwarf type of growing but they do grow here us a picture of my black night. they even bloom all year im in Puerto Rico Zone 12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFOJhRGUZ0

Here is a link that might be useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFOJhRGUZ0

This post was edited by emen13 on Sat, Sep 6, 14 at 13:40

Sometimes plants just don't do well for whatever reason - there's something about the soil or drainage or microclimate a plant won't like and that's that. Sometimes plant die for no reason, just like people. Plants have a lifespan, too.

Eh, butterfly bush aren't expensive, even if it dies after a few years not expensive to replace. It brings me such joy to see the butterflies and buzzers buzzing ALL OVER them that I wouldn't bat an eye at spending the money to replace them if I had to.

It appears that the clearest association here with the demise of butterfly bushes is an unusually cold winter.

Are nematodes prevalent in your area? I understand that butterfly bushes are nematode magnets. That's why I keep mine in a container.

Even in places where they thrive it is good practice to cut them back hard in spring every few years. They are very ugly twiggy bushes and look much better with regular rejuvenation pruning.

It might be useful when trying to keep them happy to think about where they come from. Their natural habitat is in China where they grow in forest clearings, riverbanks and limestone outcrops. So they prefer lean, fast draining soil but with plenty of moisture at the root. They are a woody weed here and are particularly prevalent along railway tracks (they like the ballast), quarries, urban wasteland and disturbed areas.

I agree with Ken about the butterflies. Although Buddleja attracts adults to the nectar they are not a food plant for butterfly larvae and so they do not provide a good all round butterfly habitat.

There must be more to it than extreme cold as my bb have survived for more than ten years and even last year's extreme cold did not phase them. It may be a combination of wet cold winters. We generally have good snow cover but not always. And while I have clay soil one thing we don't have is wet soil as the soil remains frozen most of the winter.

I agree with the idea of poor drainage/wet conditions (esp in winter and spring). Unfortunately, that's when I get the most moisture...thus for me, a butterfly bush has never been more than an annual. I've never seen fit to build it a mound or something to make them more perennial, dunno if it would help or not..with moisture coming from the sky.

IVe had my bush for three years it was doing fine then all of a sudden it started dying and with in one week it looks dead. Should I cut it back ?

Post a photo. Hard to say without seeing it.

I had a beautiful one-5 feet tall and a medium purple. I bought a large expensive green Mexican pot for it. Just a lovely combination. But i think the 2 days we had of 14 below this winter and the weeklong run of 3 below have killed it. I have 2 others-a white one and a pink one-much smaller. They do not look to be alive either and it is April 9th. I'm going to wait and not disturb them though.

I'm in zone 5 and just into my third year with mine. Make sure it says what zone it is hardy to on the tag. A lot are only zone 6. I have a smaller one- max 5'- and have to be patient in the spring. They are very slow to come back but grow quickly when they do. I also dead head and don't know if it helps for longevity but it certainly looks prettier.