Buddleia Pruning

I agree totally with Armandii especially about pruning to stop wind rock. I nearly lost my favourite ancient Buddleia by not reducing it's height last late Autumn. It isn't a "crime"! not to prune each year it just means your shrub will have it's flowers skywards next summer and it isn't very productive to prune into old wood to make up for missed years of annual pruning.

 

ooooooooooooooo I havent been pruning mine hard enough I shall remember this (or try to) next spring

 

I prune mine twice in Spring, about 3 - 4 weeks apart. Half the stems the first time, half the second. I don;t know if it really works, but I like to think it extends the flowering season - the later-pruned stems have more growing to do before they are ready for flowering.

 

My buddleja regime is as follows:

* During the early phase of flowering, cut off just the faded flowers, leaving the (usually) two small, waiting flowers just below to come along.

* In mid and late flowering phase, same as above except that I cut further down the branch, typically about a foot or two down from the faded flower.

* After flowering, cut down to 1/3rd of the bush's height. That's it for the year then.

* Around April (up north), when everything is awake but still yawning, cut down to a a few inches above the ground ready to produce lots of vigorous new growth.

Following this regime, they always do well for me and stay a reasonable size.

Another strategy that hasn't been mentioned yet is to prune them to be a small tree. My mother in law has two such ones in her garden after the later father in law pruned them that way over several years. My sister also has one like it. I think the trick is to keep them low, cut off all but the strongest stem at ground level, and then following normal pruning guidelines except never going below about 3ft from the ground.

 

I have not been pruning mine at all ! Another GC lesson learned - thanks all

 

mine have just about finished flowering & are about 10 feet tall! I shall give them a bit of a trim soon to guard against the wind, as it does get pretty windy here on the top of a hill

 

Well you live and learn. I was taught not to really hard prune Buddleia and only prune off the majority of previous year's growth and not far back into really old wood.. This Spring while in a bad mood I attacked some ancient and I mean ancient Buddleias. Instead of carefully pruning them I sort of hacked away with gay abandon. The next day I really regretted what I'd done as along with the normal purple ones I have a nice white 1 and a very pretty pink 1 too. I was convinced that I'd slaughtered them and was annoyed with myself. HOWEVER while weeding today, what do I spy?, plenty of new growth appearing on all The Buddleia, yippie. Not only are they fine, they will also look much better as because of the way I had been pruning them they now aren't so tall and not nearly so much old wood visible.

 

Just thought I'd add one more for later. When the flowers are on. Buddleja forms sort of tridents with the flowers on. The lead one happens first and two much younger ones get ready just down the stem from it. If the lead one is allowed to turn brown, then 9 times out of 10 the two little ones either side wont bother to develop. So I always chop out the central flower of the 'trident' as soon as it looks about finished, and then the other two invariably grow rapidly to take its place. Result is just longer flowering. I guess its just dead-heading in a way.