"Buddleia are a must-have for any wildlife-friendly garden, offering an irresistible feast for butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. With their graceful, arching stems and fragrant flower spikes, they bring months of colour and movement to borders, patios, and wildlife havens. Easy to grow, highly resilient, and available in a range of stunning shades, these butterfly magnets thrive with minimal effort, rewarding you with vibrant summer blooms year after year."
Peter McDermott, Head Gardener
"Buddleia are a must-have for any wildlife-friendly garden, offering an irresistible feast for butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. With their graceful, arching stems and fragrant flower spikes, they bring months of colour and movement to borders, patios, and wildlife havens. Easy to grow, highly resilient, and available in a range of stunning shades, these butterfly magnets thrive with minimal effort, rewarding you with vibrant summer blooms year after year."
Peter McDermott, Head Gardener
One of the biggest perks of Buddleia is how fast they grow. If you want to add height or fill a gap in the garden, they put on impressive growth in one season. Their arching branches and tapered blooms create natural structure and bring a soft, relaxed feel to borders. Compact varieties are ideal in pots, making them a great option for smaller gardens, courtyards and balconies.
Despite their growth speed, Butterfly Bushes are low-maintenance. A hard prune in early spring keeps them healthy and encourages a fresh flush of long, colourful flower spikes later in the year. Once established, they need very little beyond a sunny position and an occasional water in dry spells.
Buddleia prefer a sun-soaked spot, where they’ll flower the strongest. They aren’t fussy about soil type and conditions, as long as it’s well drained, and they’re tough enough to cope with typical UK winter conditions. The nectar-rich flowers are a big win for biodiversity, so planting Buddleia is an easy way to support the butterflies and bees of your garden.
For the best results, prune hard in early spring to encourage vigorous new stems, which carry the summer blooms. Deadheading spent flowers throughout the season helps prolong the display and keeps the plant looking tidy.
Buddleia grow quickly, so they should be given ample room to spread and shine. Most varieties will reach a good size within a couple of years, and a yearly prune in early spring keeps them in check and encourages even better flowering. If you’re working with a smaller space, look out for the compact patio types as they stay much neater while still offering masses of blooms for pollinators.