Gardening Tips: Pruning Your Butterfly Bush is the Key to Good Care

Two years ago, the butterfly bush in our backyard was sparse, with just a few colorful sprouts. It was just a shadow of its previous self. Today, as you can see by the picture below, it's absolutely beautiful, with plenty of bright flowers. So, what was to account for the turnaround? We found that proper pruning of the butterfly bush was the key to good care.

Note that just pruning your butterfly bush is not enough - it was pruned during our fiasco of two years ago and still looked bare (and honestly downright sad!). In order to optimize the appearance of your butterfly bush and provide the best care, you have to prune the bush at the right time and by the right amount.

So, when is the right time for pruning your butterfly bush? Early spring (March or April) works for us. It's also what is recommended by Susan Berry in "The Home Guide to Gardening Techniques."

However, the big trick to butterfly bush care is pruning your butterfly bush enough. The year that we had the "sad" bush, we had pruned what we thought was a sufficient amount. It turned out that it wasn't nearly enough to care for our plant properly. Susan Berry's advice is to "prune hard" and that means cutting more than you think you might think that you should, or to within several inches of the ground. It turns out that the "hard prune" has been the key to our butterfly bush success and will most likely be the key to your butterfly bush care as well.

Although pruning your butterfly bush may be the biggest key to proper care, it's not the only key. You'll want to make sure that it's in direct sunlight in order to make sure that the flowers color comes out brightly. Also, make sure to keep weeds out of the bed (use Preen or whatever you typically do to kill weeds). Miracle Gro or other fertilizers can also be used to help in butterfly bush care. Of course, like all plants, this one needs adequate water as well, so make sure to water it if the rain supply isn't enough.

Our butterfly bush typically blooms in late June or early July, with butterflies flocking to it later in the summer. If you plan accordingly and prune your butterfly bush sufficiently in the early spring, you should see great results in the summer. Good luck and happy gardening!