Re: Invasives?

[Tyra Trevellyn]

From: Suja [e-mail]

>Date: Tue, Aug 19, 2003 9:12 AM >Message-id: > > >Does anyone here have experience with butterfly bushes being too >prolific? Last year, I found a teeny little butterfly bush plant >growing a good 60 ft. away from the original plant was, in a front >flower bed, although the original was all the way around the back of the >house. Yesterday, I noticed two more baby plants, growing 10 or 15 ft. >away from the large plant, and at least 5 or 6 more growing in the >vicinity of the baby plant in the front bed. What is going on? Do >buddleias propagate themselves through seed? The likely parent plant is >Lochinch, BTW.

Oh yeah, they certainly do seed themselves around. I've even got several different BBs coming up in cracks in the walk (and quite a distance from any others).....and they're blooming. They don't look particularly true to any likely parents, but they're sure pretty anyway.

Anyway, I've given away seedlings that do quite well, and transplanted some of my own. Otherwise, it's easy enough to weed them out; they don't seem to reproduce in the thousands or anything like that and they're shallow-rooted.

Best, Tyra nNJ usa z7a

[B & J]

.

There are also some "dwarf" varieties that aren't out to take over the world. They're not nearly as leggy as the standard varieties and are prettier in my opinion. Varieties such as White Ball, Purple Plum, and Nanho Purple all remain under 5' X 5'. The only pruning my Nanho Purple gets is an occasional haircut between blooming periods as a lazy method of keeping it deadheaded. I never have to cut it to the ground in the spring the way the way I do the standards varieties. On the other hand, I have a Honeycomb that often attains 8' X 8' by fall even after being cut to the ground each spring. It, however, seems to be the favorite of the butterflies.

John

[Pat Kiewicz]

Buddleia spread themselves by seed.

Buddleia davidii has an entry in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden publication _Invasive Plants: Weeds of the Global Garden_.

"Butterfly bush does not yet present a serious problem but is spreading rapidly" according to the book.

It "has escaped from cultivation along the eastern seaboard from Pennsylvania to North Caronlina, and along the West Coast in California, Oregon and Washington."

"It generally colonizes disturbed areas such as roadsides and riparian zones." (That last bit may be what could eventually be very troublesome.)

"Other members of this genus (for example, B. madagascarensis, B. lindleyana, and B. asiatica) have also shown strong invasive ability while others (such as B. globosa) have not."

One presumes it does, if it is able to set and ripen seed. My clump never has. Usually we have a killing frost before it is able to.