Buddleia

In my garden the middle summer weeks are filled with harsh sunlight, and flower colours tend to get lost in the glare. It's a scruffy, down-time time of year for flowering things. Yippee for my naughty Buddleias!

I say naughty because the species is considered a pest where I garden - responsible gardeners can grow it if it's already there (?), but cannot pass cuttings around or propagate it. So the 'rules' still allow ones Buddleia to self-seed madly in ones own garden?

Ethical Dithering

This 'not so good, not so bad' approach seems quite illogical to me. It's a half-way measure which just encourages ethical dithering. I know that some states of the USA consider it an 'invasive exotic'.

Boundary Rules

And if, for example, I gardened in Nelson, New Zealand, then I shouldn't have any Buddleias within 50 metres of the boundary - that is if the next door land didn't have any. OK - I think I've got that... Aargh!

But Hybrids are OK

But some of the rules don't apply to hybrids, and I've seen white and pink flowering beauties in photographs. Hmm... Wonder if I could get any of those...

Buddleia is also known as summer lilac and butterfly bush. It flowers well for me when other summer-flowing shrubs have stopped. This is perfect timing, and the butterflies and bees love it.

And at the weekend Farmer's Market some naughty stall holder unknowingly sold me a variegated bush with the most beautifully rich purple flowers. Oops. Now it's planted in my garden behind the pond, and I guess I must promise not to sell, or propagate, or breed, or release, or commercially display it. Wonder if that means no photographs...

Footnote

An extremely knowledgable friend thinks it might be a sport of Buddleja davidii 'Royal Red' called 'Harlequin'. How does he know these things? I'm so impressed...