Gorgeous Butterfly Bushes

The gorgeous purple-flowered bush on the right
is one of my original butterfly bushes

Last year I started a small landscape project in my new mini back yard, which was created when I had a privacy fence installed to keep my chickens away from my back patio. I purchased a number of water-conserving plants to create a colorful planting bed area, which included some taller background shrubs - Hopseed bush - that were placed along the fence.

The Hopseed bushes came highly recommended, by a local water conservation group, for the High Desert area, but I did not have success with them. All 11 of them died back to the ground during the winter, and only one of those re-sprouted the following spring. I was hoping for something that would not have to start over from ground level every spring. Then, I remembered the two beautiful butterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii) I already had, and how well they were doing in my yard - more of them along the fence would be perfect, plus they would attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

The bushes I already had are purple flowering of an unknown variety. I knew that Butterfly Bush came in other shades, so I decided to do a bit of online shopping to see what I could find. I was amazed at all of the colors - purples, pinks, magenta, whites, yellow, reds, bicolor and more - wow! They were available as small, containerized plants or as seeds, and from many different online nurseries. I chose to start with containerized plants - although on the small side, it would be much quicker than starting from seeds.

The labels from some of the
new butterfly bushes.

I ended up purchasing 14 plants in four different varieties to place all around the yard - Inspired White, Peacock, Inspired Pink, and Honeycomb. I may end up with a couple more if I can find space because I had a hard time making choices from all of the beautiful selections available.

For the most part, butterfly bushes do well in USDA zones 4-9 – the High Desert where I live is in zone 8b. These fast-growing deciduous plants can grow to six to eight feet high and four to five feet wide, and bloom from mid spring through early fall. I prune mine back to about two or three feet each winter, and each spring they come back quickly, and better than ever. They prefer full sun, but all of mine have done well with a little afternoon shade. They like average well-drained soil and low to moderate watering. Mine are in native soil that gets a layer of compost/mulch applied every year. They are watered with drip irrigation.

The highlight of these great plants is their sweet-scented, cone-shaped flower clusters that make excellent cut flowers and are attractive to many pollinators, especially bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Removing the spent flowers encourages them to flower even more.

Just a few weeks after I planted the new bushes, they were growing and beginning to get flower buds. This year they are starting out around three-feet high and are showing promise to be full of gorgeous flowers. I can hardly wait for to see what they look like this summer.