Buddleia - in need of some pruning advice

My Buddleia bush was purchased as a small plant about 11 years ago. Over the years it flourished and grew but during the past couple of years it's produced very little new growth and only about a dozen flower shoots. All in all it's rather sparse with a lot of old thick woody stems. It's about 6 feet tall.

it's never been pruned and I'm wondering if pruning might help it produce a lot more growth for next year.

From reading around I understand that the best time to prune it is late winter/early spring. However, I'm wondering exactly how to prune it - some advice says to cut it back to ground level while other advice says to trim it back to the lowest new shoots/leaf buds near to the ground.

Which is right?

I should add that I can't see evidence of any leaf buds near to the ground - the closest are about 3 feet from the ground ........ so should I just chop it back to ground level and hope for the best?

Which leads me onto this question - will a Buddleia bush put forth new growth just from the roots?

 

Buddlia should be pruned every year in winter. Prune hard back to outward facing buds. If it hasn't been pruned for 6 years, it must be pretty big. I would prune the outer branches hard to 6"-12" from the ground and the inner branches not so low, tapering up to about 2-3' so you have a dome shaped mound of sticks. This will almost guarantee that you will have a profusion of flowers next summer. Do this pruning any time between about November and February.

 

Thanks very much. Just looking at it again and I can't see any buds below about 4 feet (not 3 feet as I previously thought) - presumably if I cut BELOW the lowest bud then I'm not going to get any growth from those branches? Or will it put up new shoots from points that i'm not seeing?

 

We had one similar, over 12 ft tall and loads of horrible dead wood at the bottom. It was cut down to 2ft, dug up, left bare root (well, more stump) in the garden for a few weeks (I think this was October time) then replanted.
Come spring it soon sprouted loads of healthy growth and has flowered well. It got to about 7ft high again so I trimmed/deadheaded it a bit shorter.
They are very tough.

 

12 feet? My word!

Did you leave it bare root/stump deliberately for a few weeks, or had you meant to move it much sooner but then couldn't for some reason? I ask as I'm wondering if you would have left it bare root for a few weeks if you hadn't planned on moving it.

 

To be honest we were going to throw it in the bin but then I took pity on it, and by chance had an area of brambles I had cleared where it could go.