Buddleja (Butterfly Bushes)
10 plants in this collection
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![Buddleia davidii 'Attraction', butterfly bush, deep red blooms on a compact rounded shrub]()
![Buddleia 'Lochinch', butterfly bush, lavender-blue blooms over silvery foliage]()
![Buddleia 'Miss Ruby', butterfly bush, magenta blooms with a butterfly]()
Buddleia davidii x globosa "Miss Ruby" PP 19,950 $26.00 /Butterfly Bush 'Miss Ruby'
- Zones 6–9
- 4–6 ft
![Buddleia alternifolia, fountain butterfly bush, fragrant lavender bloom on weeping stems]()
![Buddleia cordata ssp. tomentella, Los Lerios butterfly bush, pale-backed felted foliage]()
![Buddleia loricata, mountain sagewood, a rugged evergreen shrub offered by Woodlanders.]()
![Buddleja salviifolia, sage-leaf butterfly bush, pale lavender flower clusters]()
About the Buddleja (Butterfly Bushes) Collection
Linnaeus named the genus for the Reverend Adam Buddle, an English botanist and bryologist who died in 1715 and never saw the plants that carry his name. The butterfly bushes came later, most famously Buddleja davidii out of western China, and the common name is earned honestly: a panicle in full nectar flow on a hot afternoon can carry a dozen butterflies at once, along with bees and the occasional hummingbird moth working the flowers at dusk.
The genus runs much wider than the familiar summer lilac. Buddleja alternifolia flowers on the previous year's wood and drapes like a small weeping tree; Buddleja lindleyana carries slender violet spikes on a looser, more graceful frame; Buddleja salviifolia and Buddleja loricata come out of southern Africa with sage-textured, felted foliage. One honest caution comes with the vigor: Buddleja davidii self-sows freely in some regions and is regulated in a few, so deadhead the spent panicles and check your own state list. The sterile and near-sterile hybrids sidestep the problem altogether.
