Butterfly Bush: The Centerpiece of a Butterfly Garden

Butterflies do not have a sense of smell, at least what we consider to be a sense of smell. Butterflies smell with their feet. So, they do not know if a flower has nectar they desire until they land on it. Butterflies are attracted to a garden by large, colorful flowers. Nectar producing flowers have some of the most brilliant colors and none is more brilliant than the flowers of the butterfly bush.

The butterfly bush should be used as the centerpiece of a butterfly garden because it grows taller than most of the other flowers and is one of the first the insects will see. It will draw them in and then they can explore the rest of the space. Plant flowers of many different bright colors around the bush. That is what they like. Butterflies are not the only ones who like the nectar. Bees and hummingbirds will come by for their share as well.

Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) is also known as summer lilac. The plant is a shrub that grows to 8 feet tall by 8 feet wide. In the southern end of its growing range, it can grow even taller. The situation in the north is different. There the tree will die back to the ground for the winter and re-appear the next spring. Since it does not grow from year to year, it will only reach a height of 5 feet with the same in width.

Where you put the plant has a lot to do with how well it grows. Plant in full sun or partial shade and a moist , well-drained, fertilized soil. The plant can take poor soils and is drought tolerant, but the more you stick to what it prefers, the better the results will be.

Take proper care of the plant and it will reward you with medium-green, gray-green or dark-green, egg or lance-shaped leaves that stay green or turn brown in the winter.
The eye-catching flowers will be purple, light blue, lavender, red-lavender, pink, white, or golden yellow and grow in long, pyramid shaped clusters 6 to 10 inches long at the tips of the stems from July through first frost. The flowers give way to tiny seed capsules.

The plant is hardy in USDA zones 5 to 9. Gardeners in the north will have to prune away the dead wood from the dieback in the spring. It will not interfere with the flowering. The flowers only grow on new stems. Just be sure not to trim any of the new ones away.

Sources:

Ohio State University