Butterfly Bush Miss Butterfly

These flowering stems reach a foot long, pointed up and out all over this well-branched shrub. Butterflies flock to them, posing beautifully for you all day long! The blooms begin opening in midsummer in most climates, continuing through mid-fall where autumn is mild. The more you cut for the vase, the more you seem to see -- this is an exceptionally heavy-blooming Buddleia, so you have plenty for cutting.

Miss Butterfly reaches about 7 feet high and 5 feet wide at maturity. For a bushier, fuller look -- and to promote heaviest flowering -- cut this shrub down to 6 inches from the ground in late winter. Don't worry about such a severe prune -- it pops right back up when the warm spring weather arrives!

Butterfly Bush is a fantastically hardy sun-lover, able to withstand adversity of all kinds. Survivors of the second World War recall seeing Butterfly Bushes arising from the debris of European cities, one of the very first flowering shrubs to return after the war. They are impervious to heat, humidity, and (once established) even drought. Butterflies and bees flock to them, and their grape soda-ish fragrance is readily shared with neighboring garden plants. What a joy! Zones 5-9. Pkt is 100 seeds.