Butterfly Bush Appreciation Thread

Well i thought i would start this topic as in this part of the world its spring again and im ready to grow some Butterfly Bushes this year in mass quantity!

Maybe anyone else who has a butterfly bush or is growing one for the first time can post about their exploits with these tough and resilient giant flower producing lovelies and also post some pictures of their own garden varieties throughout the season.

 

well i havnt been gardening for long, i first started to get into it a year or 2 after we moved into our first house.

here is a pic of my very first butterfly bush that was gifted to me from my sister from a cutting of hers. It is a light purple variety but i dont know its exact colour type. You can see from the date stamp that it went into the ground in June which was when i got it.


My first ever butterfly bush. ( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )


It wasnt much but i stuck it in the ground and gave it a little support with a piece of wood. I didnt know much about gardening but i was interested in doing stuff in the yard.

You can see some radishes i planted along side it that actually did grow. My technique wasnt the best but i remember pulling up some radishes and eating them straight from the yard that year..

i dont remember it blooming but it slowly grew bigger that year..

 

So 2008 came about and i started getting into gardening more..
gone was the use of that part of the yard to grow radishes but i didnt mind since it was now officially my butterfly bush territory.

the butterfly bush hadnt been trimmed back from '07 as i didnt really want to lose the growth that doesnt die back in my climate and i didnt really know too much about the technique.

here are some shots taken that year of its continuing rise..




( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )


as you can see i hadnt gotten into weeding the area yet..

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )


now i had!

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )


and it grew..

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )


and it grew some more......its over on the right..

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )

sadly i didnt take any pics of its blooms last year which sucks! I dont know why i didnt but it had some nice flowers on it..

it was a lil spindly but it was young and it hadnt had any trims yet to help its shape.

 

So here we are in 2009!

i feel this is the year of the butterfly bush in my garden and i have a feeling that it will be a good year for taking pics of blooms and bugs on our subject here and on the other bushes i am going to grow.

here is a couple of shots of its recent growth. I trimmed it back in march if i remember rightly. I didnt want to trim all of it right to the ground so i left like 6-8 inches of old wood at the base from which i could see new buds growing up in between.


reamerging butterfly bush... ( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )



reamerging buttefly bush... ( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )

i have 2 red, 2 purple, and 1 white generic butterfly bush twigs with minimal leaves on that i got from a store. They werent in the best shape and im not even sure of their specific name varieties. These will most probably go at the back of the garden in the wild area as i call it when they are stronger. I already lost some from the same store last year back there as i thought they would grow from their twiggy starts. This year they are getting better treatment.

A few weeks ago i went and found some named varieties at a small garden center and i wont be going back to the twiggy purchases like i first did again. I bought a White Profusion and a Black Knight variety that were leaved out and in great shape. They cost me $5 each.

I plan on buying a bunch more soon of the Black Knight to put along a bare fence. Im not exactly sure where im putting the White Profusion yet..

 

so today i decided to plant the one Black Knight butterfly bush i have already..

i live in a house at the end of a neighborhood so its close to a main road. I dont have solid fences, its made out of those large plastic lattice boards and is attached to posts in the ground.

I dont need total privacy but i can see through the boards and would like to block some of it out a bit. I could plant more evergreens but they are so slow and although they look nice i wanted to put some more flowery stuff in the yard.

The good thing about butterfly bushes is they grow quite fast so even with pruning they will be back in a few months after i trim them. I really want to give back to nature to so the bushes will provide some nectar to the insects.

heres a couple of shots of the small bush i planted..



Small Black Knight Butterfly Bush ( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )






Small Black Knight Butterfly Bush ( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )

you can see the road under the lattice, i might install extra strips to the ground at some point to seal the garden off better.

i plan on buying some more bushes tomorrow and will plant them down the line.

so i dug my hole and filled it with some organic choice soil amended with general purpose organic food. Im an organic gardener when i can be..

i put some of the original dirt from the hole on top, its got a lot of clay in it in my area. I will buy some mulch later and create a giant strip to help keep the weeds down. I dont want to have to worry about cutting the grass beneath the bushes when the are large so i will be putting a lot of mulch down at some point all along the fence.

 

It looks very nice, GN. I'm going to put a butterfly bush in my back garden -- I need a small variety so that I can still talk to my neighbor across the fence. Your corner garden shot is cool. What are those orange and purple flowers?

 

GN, before you put your mulch down lay some about 10 layers of wet newspaper down and put the mulch on top, it helps to keep any existing weeds and seeds from growing through the mulch. Your fence row will be beautiful. I will be waiting for the pictures of their progress.

 

I want a butterfly bush so bad.Yours is growing so great GN.

 

thanks for the comments guys!

i just got back from lunch break which i spent down at my favorite lil garden store which is on the side of a highway road. They have so much more better deals on there stuff than the big garden centers.

I picked up 6 more Black Knights at $5 a piece, six young and healthy looking Mr.Stripey toms - $2 for the whole lot, 2 bigger tomato plants called German Johnson and Black Krim for 1 or 2 dollars a piece but i didnt really pay attention since i was kinda excited at getting them.

heres the Black Krim.


thanks for the tips on the news paper Cajunbelle, i guess the paper and ink doesnt affect anything plant wise right. Im gonna have to go buy some papers today when i go get my mulch.

Daisybeans u can get nano versions ive seen that are like dwarf butterfly bushes. I think they get around 4ft or so but im not sure. The orange spikes are Torch Lillies in bloom or some call the Red Hot Pokers and the purple flowers are Bee's Balm in bloom. The bee's and hummers love em!

Im looking forward to when the butterfly bushes grow up but i feel the new ones wont be as impressive until next season when they get more established.

When i get home im gonna spend the rest of the day til sundown out in the yard...

 

GN, try not to use the colored pieces of the newspaper. The black ink is made from a vegetable dye, the colored may have chemicals in it.

 

GN -- Bee Balm! I have it growing in my back garden but couldn't remember the name. I call it the Dr Seuss flower. I'll check out the smaller b-fly bushes. You got some goooood deals there.

 

thanks for the extra tip Cajunbelle..

yeah DaisyB i was gifted a cutting from my sister a couple years back and didnt really know what it was or i had forgotten what it was. The nice people here i.d.'d it for me...
what was nice was i had no idea it could bloom so when it starting producing the pretty flowers i fell in love with it...

its a great attractor of bee's and hummers so it was perfect for my garden!

take a look at how fast its growing..

April 9th..

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )

and

April 21st..

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )

 

so i got outside yesterday and worked on my butterfly bush project!

guess i coulda waited for a cooler day but i was excited to get it done. Cajunbelle gave me some tips to use paper over the grass then lay mulch but i found some of the black cloth stuff you can buy in the store that my sister had given to me so i used that.

I cut the grass short and then laid down two strips of it around the baby butterfly bushes. I found some pins i had and secured the cloth and then started laying the mulch which i didnt really have enough of. The mulch layer isnt very thick and some areas on the back edge still need covering. I will buy some more bags and make it thicker at some point.

Heres a couple of pics..


work in progress...

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )


the finished result..

( photo / image / picture from Green_Numb's Garden )

i still need to put 1 or 2 more bushes in at the end as there is some more space down there. Im pretty happy with the result so far and i was paying attention at times to how the sun fell on the plants there as we have a large Willow Oak that blocks out the sun at various times during the day.

Luckily they get morning sun and afternoon sun at various times so i think they will do ok.

 

That looks great, and it will be a show piece when they are blooming.