Buddleia and Butterflies

[OllyBJolly]

I have a buddleia that has outgrown its space in my garden and at the beginning of the season decided to take it out this winter. It's not particularly attractive, even in bloom which it is now. However, it attracts a huge amount of bees and butterflies : it can have a dozen butterflies fluttering around which is so joyous to watch.

Is there anything I can replace it with that will attract the insects but be more aesthetically pleasing?

Just chop it back, it will grow back but smaller, they can take a hard prune.

Butterfly bush or lavender would be smaller.

Prune it right down to the stump. We do ours every year early spring and they grow back thicker and with more blooms. You can control the size they grow to by pruning.

Thanks for the responses.

I chopped it right back last year after flowering - to about a foot but it's back to maybe 8-9ft now.

Is a buddleia not the butterfly bush? I also have a lavender which also attracts bees and butterflies but I can't see it for the buddleia!

I've got a small butterfly bushes that grow in pots

We also do ours in the spring. Both down to the stump, one is about four foot high, the other five or six. Left unpruned ours grow huge and thick, I'd say at least twelve feet plus.

I also cut mine down to a stump, it’s been in the garden,in the wrong place, many years before our occupancy.
As it grows back I take out the branches until only a few new ones are left. It then only develops to about 3 ft with small flowers.
The butterflies also love Verbina Bonariensis and Knautia, more delicate wafting plants.
I think they really go for plants with small open purple flowers.

Bedding plants are also attractive to butterflies in summer - we planted some geraniums recently and before I'd got them in the ground they were being homes in on. We hacked out a buddleia recently as it was growing vigorously right up against a window - took a saw, a fork (which got broken) and a sledgehammer to get it out.

If you want to keep a buddleia look at the Buzz series. They are dwarf

I have a dwarf one too, only a few years old but a lovely size and covered in butterflies too. Maybe not aesthetically pleasing but great to encourage wildlife.

Yes I always cut them down in the spring..this year the white one is up to about 8-9ft. The bi-colour ones are a little smaller about 5 ft. I assume bi-colour ones are a little less robust than the older style coloured ones.

Thanks for the recommendation of BUZZ..I like that one and will earmark for next year

I usually cut mine down to about knee height, and I think that next year I will cut it lower down, and then prune it again when it gets to about a metre high or so. Hopefully it won't then grow into the enormous leggy monstrosity it usually does.

There's another self-seeded one in the garden, and that has to come out next week to make room for a new shed, so I might put it in a container and see what happens.