Butterfly Bush

Butterfly bush, Buddleja davidii, is not native to the southeastern United States and can become invasive, so we're going to have to keep it contained, but it's so darn pretty!

Those white conical shaped flowers lasted all summer long with no pruning, but pruning off older flowers can encourage new flowers to form. With very little maintenance they should keep flowering right up until the first frost. We planted two of them at the "back" of the wedding garden figuring they'd be easy to keep alive and should get fairly large, fairly fast... up to 16 feet tall! Well, one of the two didn't make it through our brutally hot and dry July, but this one appears to be doing great and we could spread it from cuttings if we wanted. However, these bushes will out compete a lot of the native species so the plan is to limit them to two massive specimens.

They are great nectar producers and attract butterflies, as demonstrated by this gulf fritillary. But not all species of butterfly like the same thing so we'll be encouraging the native species to hang around as well, goldenrod being a prime example.