Butterfly bush - Buddleia davidii

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Butterfly bush - Buddleia davidii
© Dr Chris Gibson/English Nature

The butterfly bush or buddleia is a large, arching shrub. The massed dense plumes of tiny scented flowers come in shades from white through to deep purple. In a well-placed sunny position, especially by a wall, the flowers can swarm with butterflies and bees in late summer. The shrub has woody stems which carry long deciduous, lance-shaped, deeply veined leaves. The leaves are white and felty on the underside.

This plant seeds readily and spreads vigorously - it is indeed the fastest- spreading plant in Britain - and has become a problem plant in many areas by invading natural habitats along river banks and elsewhere. If planted close to a house its roots are apt to undermine the drains. Mature plants need a hard, annual, winter pruning if they are not to take over your garden.

That said, buddleia rivals any native plant in its attractiveness to insects, especially bees, hoverflies and, of course butterflies. You can delay the flowering season by pruning late. This could mean that you have the only buddleias still flowering in the locality and that any butterflies still around will seek out your garden.

Buddleia has been one of the most successful of all plants introduced to Britain, in its colonisation of new territory. It was brought to Europe in the late nineteenth century from its native south west China, where it is a rock plant, and is now firmly established in dry urban habitats over most of Britain. It can root in small cracks in walls and pavements and in railway ballast and was able to make use of the then very extensive network of branch lines, along which its very light seeds were blown and drawn along in the slipstream of steam trains.

The scientific name derives from two people of different generations and nationalities, but who at least had in common a religious calling. Adam Buddle, one of a long line of English parson-naturalists, is commemorated in the first part, and the French Catholic missionary Père David in the second. The Reverend Buddle died in 1715. It was Père David who was the first westerner to record the plant, in 1869, although it was another missionary who brought it to Europe.

Animals

Brimstone, Buff-tailed bumble bee, Butterflies, Comma, Common carder bumble bee, Orange-tip, Painted lady, Peacock, Red admiral, Red mason bee, Red-tailed bumble bee, Small tortoiseshell, White-tailed bumble bee, Yellow shell moth

Foliage	Green
Flower	Purple, July to October
Moisture	(Dry)
Sunlight	(Full sun)
Origin	Non-native