buddleia

Thanks. It's good to be on GC. Unfortunately i have to go now as a blackbird has got into the conservatory and my better half is shouting for me while wrestling with the cat...wish i knew where the camera was lol

 

ooh one of my best friends, a fiery greek girl lives in the flats just up from the galleria. You,ve probably heard her drunkenly practicing her aulos on a sunday afternoon....

 

There is a very good article about Buddleias in this month's Garden (the RHS magazine). In that they say you can prune very hard at the end of winter, as Palustris says. They also say that repeated deadheading through summer can produce colour well into October.

Alternatively you can prune some stems very hard in spring, to encourage flowering, and leave some stems lightly pruned to retain the plants size and shape (but those stems won't flower as much).

I think they are nearly impossible to kill. In the City Gardiner programme, some time ago, it was stated that the two toughest and most resiliant plants in the UK were Bramble and Buddleia.

 

They need hard pruning if you want to keep them within bounds, and to get a reasonable shape, but I've found cutting back into old wood is not successful. I don't so much deadhead through summer as mini-prune!