Buddelia advice--does size matter?

19 years ago

Hi, I'm an avid gardener who has created and worked around some butterfly gardens in my day. My own yard is tiny, tiny, tiny. I decided to plant a buddelia in the backyard, in view of my little patio swing and well away from nieghbors' patios in my row house complex, because I know they attract bees too. I really only have room for one specific butterfly plant, so I picked buddelia because it is the most reliable. But I bought a dwarf white one, and it had zippo butterflies on it. Other plants in my yard had butterflies, but they seemed to actually avoid this plant. I don't know the cultivar, the tag just says "Buddelia white." But it is a dwarf, with zero scent.

So, what to do to replace it? Purple just doesn't go with the color scheme in my yard and brick house. I would kind of like a lighter color since I'm usually out in the yard in the evening. But I also want maximum butterflies for my buck.

What has been your experience with the pink varieites? Will getting a full size white one solve my problems? I really don't have room for a full size, but are dwarfs out period? Would clethera make a viable alternative? I had one in my last butterfly garden, and it hardly ever bloomed worth a darn and was right next to a buddelia, so got ignored.

So what should my top criteria be, size or color or both? Thanks for your help.

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Comments (6)

buford
19 years ago
There is a yellow variety that is very pretty and attracts many butterfiles. It's called honeycomb.
webkat5
19 years ago
Honeycomb is not reliably hardy in Z 5/6....

I love 'Pink Delight'...a great attractor...
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tracey_nj6
19 years ago
I second "Pink Delight". I had never seen so many butterflies on it at one time as I did this year. The hummingbird has visited a few times as well, as do the hummingbird moths. Not alot of carpenter bee activity, and this year, I've got lots of them! It's definitely the favorite in my yard. I also have a white one, a lilac, "Dark Knight", and a "Royal Red"; none of which get as much activity as the "Pink Delight" (although the white gets second top billing, and heavy activity from carpenter bees).
mcronin
19 years ago
I have 8 different kinds of butterfly bushes( 60 in all) in our one-acre butterfly sanctuary in SW VA. I've never lost a honeycomb butterfly bush to the cold. Both honeycomb and pink delight have been very good butterfly magnets in my garden. BTW, I have 10 clethera bushes and have little butterfly activity on any of them and they have a limited bloom period anyway( at least in my garden).

mike
lpinkmountain
Original Author
19 years ago
Thanks for the tips, I'll see what they have at the nursery. Allentown is mostly zone 6, with occasional zone 5 winter conditions, but not every year. It seems the weather is not necessarily getting warmer per se with global warming, just more erratic. But I do know there is zone creep going on, so I probably can safely say I'm in zone 6 nowdays. I haven't seen many yellow ones around here, but it's a relatively new cultivar isn't it?

Pink delight gets really big. So it seems that size DOES matter, at least height wise. Maybe that's why ho hum clethera gets ignored.
Seems like a plant called "pink delight" would be tailor made for me, lol! But as you can see below, my garden is really small and tight. I'd put the plant just to the right of where those white dasies are in the picture. Daisies have been transplanted, and a dwarf japanese white pine is waiting to go in the back corner of the yard. The little white buddelia looked great in that spot, but was just ho ho hum in flower, and no scent and no butterflies.

{{gwi:42412}}
khakitag
19 years ago
How about nanho purple, it's a lighter purple, and is fairly compact. I have two growing great in pots, and they attract a fair amount of butterflies, not as many as my royal red, but it is pretty big. could you just plant what you wanted, and keep it pruned to size?