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butterfly bush

by DrTom on Jan 16, 2010

My favorite flowering plant at DrTom's is the butterfly bush ( Buddleia davidii ). I have purple and white varieties. This woody perennial gets about 8 feet tall and several feet wide. I have taken to planting so many of them that I am not sure the sun will ever hit the ground near our house. They flower profusely beginning in July, and the flowers remain until frost. The flower spikes contain hundreds of tiny individual flowers, which are visited by a huge assortment of bees, spiders, hawkmoths, hummingbirds, butterflies, and other insects. The plant attracts an entire community of organisms by its visual display and its flowers' highly aromatic fragrance. Even I can smell the flowers when I am several meters away. At this time of year, our evening Happy Hour usually consists of sitting on a small patio I am constructing adjacent to two butterfly bushes accompanied, of course, by a scotch and a cigar. The patio is designed to sit facing downhill, with the bushes at your back. But...Read More >>

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Wings of change: How butterflies give vital clues to the state of the ecosystem

by Kim Sengupta

Butterflies herald the return of spring sunshine and long summer days. There can be few more welcome visitors to the garden than a flamboyant red admiral or peacock, clinging sated to a buddleia bush or fluttering energetically over the lawn. A cloud of blues almost underfoot on a downland walk is a quintessential mid-summer sight. And these beautiful insects are also key indicators of a healthy ecosystem.

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