Buddleia Buzz

Hi I planted a buzz last year at beginning of season in a suitable container and the soil was as they like which is free draining . Trouble is the whole season it never grew one inch!! Not dying just not growing and the stems seem quite brittle.
Not sure why is is stuck at the same size as opposed to our buddleia davidii which always goes bonkers come growingf season. I will give it another chance but if no grow by autumn it will be replaced.

 

I've not had or even seen any of the dwarf cultivars touted as "container buddleias" do really well in a pot for more than a couple of years. They can often be fabulous performers in the ground, tho! Can you not plant it anywhere? Their eventual width isn't much, about 4ft and they only take up about a square foot of ground space.

Nick

 

I've had some success with Buzz plants. They are fairly robust and grow okay in borders, but grow to a fair size - anything up to 2 metres height when fully established. They are alright in containers for a couple of years, subject to proper treatment. They need re-potting quite often, with root pruning if they aren't going into a bigger pot. They are also greedy: they need liquid feeding and top-dressing.
However, why yours isn't growing might be down to the current weather. Or possibly the plug-plant it grew from had some damage to the primary meristem (it's at about ground level). I've had this a couple of times with plugs and the only answer is to take cuttings and start a new plant.

 

As a separate comment, Buzz are quite good plants. Many of the other dwarf hybrids (mostly from the US) are absolutely awful and fail miserably to live up to their hype.

 

@The Buddleja Garden Do you find that some colours perform better than others with Buzz? My magenta one did very poorly but my 'Ivory' grows to six foot and has been consistently floriferous for about 4 summers!

Also, may I ask how you got on with the 'Chip' series when planted in the ground?

Nick

 

Buzz Magenta flowers well for me, but it's not a particularly attractive plant as it becomes rather sparse and sticky. Buzz Ivory is at least as big as Nanho White, and is as good. Raspberry, Indigo and Pink are doing okay; Red/Velvet grows very tall and straight up, and the colour is spectacular. I lost Lavender to wind-rock, but the new plant looks hardy enough.

The 'Chips' are mixed bunch. The first one, Blue Chip, eventually grows quite big; nice foliage but the flowers are terrible - very small and ugly. Red Chip is almost the same as Buzz Red, although shorter - it's the best one and grows fine outside. Purple Chip/Purple Haze is a disaster - lousy small flowers of a weak purple, and it grows into a full-size Buddleja. White, Pink, Lilac and Blue Jr. are too weak for the British climate and are really only suited to containers in shelter.

 

@The Buddleja Garden Thanks very much, that's really useful to know! Was going to buy a few of the Chips but I don't think I'll bother now! Sorry to be a pain and pick your brains again, but which dwarf do you think is closest to a true burgundy?

Nick

 

I think Red Chip/Miss Molly is the best deep red, by far the best of the series and reaches about 1.5 metres. Nurseries have had trouble with propagation, so it's become uncommon.

Sugar Plum is probably equal in colour and is quite a restrained cultivar if annually pruned. Buzz Red is also good, despite the tall and very upright growth habit.

 

Thank you, I shall thoroughly enjoy researching those, they sound great!

Incidentally, excellent website, I often use it as a reference!

Nick

 

Maybe they are like Dwarf Apples? (i.e. Apples on a dwarfing rootstock). Seems like a perfect idea, but they need so much more "input" to just survive, and most likely (I think ??) to be bought by people who assume that for the one plant they are going to have ... and in a container at that ... that it must be the perfect answer, but they are least well equipped to succeed, unfortunately.

 

I have a buzz in my front border. And had no issues, it flowers like mad every year and grows to about 6ft each year. I cut it down every year and have never had any issues. I did have it in a pot as I bought it from my old garden and still did OK, but not as well as in the ground.

Rusty