Buddleia 'Blue Knight' MONARCH® - Butterfly Bush (Copy)

This medium sized butterfly bush has dazzling huge pink blooms. It's an excellent choice for a shrub-like plant that will add beautiful bubble gum pink blooms to your yard. Coming in at 4 feet tall and wide, it is useful in a range of situations where you might use other less showy and colorful shrubs. Cherry Royale is a nice sized shrub for the back of a border garden or a foundation planting where you want some serious color. We think these are perfect shrubs for those looking for a hydrangea alternative in a location with full sun. Foliage is a minty green and wispy providing a nice layering effect to the shrub and a perfect backdrop for other flowers before the blooms emerge in late summer.

The MONARCH® Butterfly Bush collection consists of medium sized bushes that have a gum-drop like shape and flower profusely for the majority of the summer and early fall months. The butterfly bush is a staple of many gardens due to its fast growth rate, hardiness, and prolific blooms. Arriving in late summer, the bottle shaped blooms of this buddleia are 8-10 inches in length and a pink that pops over in hints of darker red in the interior. Butterfly bushes are named such because they are a bounty for pollinators attracting hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and other pollinators to their sweet-scented blooms. Drought tolerant once established.

Photos courtesy of Walter Gardens

General care for any tree or shrub is easy, but like any living thing will require your attention. Please educate yourself and follow these simple rules.

Buddleia 'Blue Knight' MONARCH® - Butterfly Bush (Copy)

Buddleias - Butterfly Bush - are most successful when planted in rich, well drained soil high in organic matter. They benefit from alkaline conditions so periodic treatment of lime can be beneficial to growth and flower production. Once established buddleias are moderately drought resistant, but should be monitored for stress during extended periods of dry weather. Pruning is suggested especially in northern locations in order to stimulate growth, cutting them back to about 12 inches promotes new growth and more flowers. Pruning also promotes denser more compact plants, and will restore plants that have become stringy, thin or open. Similar to crape myrtles buddleias break dormancy late in the spring, so don't worry if they are still sticks when the rest of your plants are leafed out. Just be patient and they will explode with growth by mid to late spring.