There’s a garden in my neighborhood that has a great-looking butterfly bush, along with a few other plants you don’t always see (itea and dwarf forsythia – a terrific combination by the way) and I could stare at this butterfly bush for a long time. When it’s not tormented by a little snow, as seen above, this particular bush is perfectly shaped, looking like a fountain of butterfly bush branches coming out of the ground and arching in the most beautiful way in all the right directions.
What’s nice about butterfly bushes in winter is that even if branches are broken, the bushes are meant to be cut way back in the spring since the flowers bloom on new growth. I have seen one really tall bush at a house where I worked where the butterfly bush hadn’t been pruned/cut back in years and the only real leafy growth and flowers were on the upper half with a very empty lower half.
I planted a small 2′ butterfly bush in my own garden this past summer and I picked a plant with lots of new leaf growth at the bottom. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens and how much taller it will get after I cut it back. Oh, and the flowers? The scent is my very favorite.
