How low do you go?

I pruned my buddleja back last week but only to about 4ft high. According to this week's AG magazine, it should be pruned back to 12-18" from the ground.

That seems harsh to me but I'm just a beginner so what do I know!

So how low do you take yours?

 

That's about how low I go. It comes back each year great.

Rusty

 

its up to you how low to go , plus side of leaving it your height you can plant up around the base with more plants

 

I take mine down to about 4ft at the start of winter, then down further to about 1ft in early spring. That way it sort of rejuvenates it and it will easily put on 8ft of growth by the time its flowers come that same year.

But, that's not the only way. It can be trained into a 'standard' tree if you let the strongest stem stay, removing all others regularly, and removing side shoots on the lower half of the main stem, and then regularly pruning it to the desired shape. It took my father in law quite a few years to achieve that though.

Whichever way you do it, remember to prune off any stems that are going where you don't want them, and to get the most out of it's flowering period, keep an eye on it for flowers that are going past their best. When they do, carefully cut them off. If you look carefully, you will see that buddleja forms a sort of trident where it flowers, with one big flower cluster that flowers first, and a much smaller immature flower coming from the base of the main flower, sticking out either side. When you cut the finished flower off, take care to leave the two babies ones in place. They will then get the signal to bloom. If you leave the dead 'main' flower on, the two babies either side will often fail to develop. Once a branch is pretty much worn out, cut it back by about a third, and if you're lucky, the remaining side shoots off it will develop to produce more flowers the same year. Once it gets so late in the year that new flowers just stop coming, that's when I leave the remaining old flowers to just go over naturally. I think the big brown clusters like quite 'autumny', then the whole bush gets a massive haircut once winter starts, otherwise it just scruffy.

 

Agree you can be pretty brutal. After quite a few years of perhaps not pruning hard enough I had shrubs with loads of unproductive wood. 1 day last Spring in somewhat of a bad mood I hacked the Buddleias down to only about 2ft (these are pretty old Buddleia) , then felt guilty that I'd probably killed them. Wrong, best show I have had in years and even got new growth sprouting from the trunks at soil level. Hack away!

 

Yep, always make sure you leave some buds on.

 

Thank you all. I've bitten the bullet and pruned it right down to about 2 foot and have made sure I've left buds for regrowth. Fingers crossed!

 

Going to do the same with my Wigella this year it flowered quite poorly last year.

 

I just hack at all of mine until I'm happy with them and they come back year after year. Lovely things.

 

I cut half the shoots on mine "early" and the other half "late" in the hope that it will cause flowering to be staggered. I'm not sure it works though!

I cut to roughly 12" - 18"

 

I massacred my weigela last year because I get so fed up with its shapeless habit. Showing new buds now but it sulked for a while. No flowers this year, methinks.