How do you prune butterfly bushes?

In: Home and Garden

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Butterfly bushes (botanical name Buddleja, sometimes spelled Buddleia) produce blooms on their new growth, not last years woody stems. This means they can be pruned back in late winter through early spring to encourage lush new growth and flowering in the summer.

When pruning you can cut the stems all the way back to the ground in order to create a more compact shrub, or just prune them back a little to keep their size and shape as you desire.

Alternatively, in a low maintenance landscape you might only prune butterfly bushes every few years, except to clean out any dead or malformed branches. Some of them can become quite large, others are dwarf cultivars.

In cold climate areas, avoid pruning any shrub too late in the summer, as new growth produced late in the season tends to be killed by winter freezing.

First answer by Rosak9a. Last edit by Rosak9a. Contributor trust: 24 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 30 [recommend question]

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