Description
Description: Pink Delight’ is the true pink we are growing – very good pink color with a large flower – overall an excellent variety.
Buddleias are a bit difficult to describe in the southern New England climate for reasons which I will relate later. However, for a grand show of flowers in mid summer, and indeed into the fall, they are unsurpassed. The fact that they attract a large number of butterflies only enhances the amount of color they bring to the garden.
Although Buddleias can become rather large and ungainly shrubs further south and along the warmer areas of our coast, they generally die to the ground after a normal winter in New England. Since they bloom on current-season wood and since the shrub tends to have an ungainly appearance, it is probably wise to cut them to the ground each winter, whether or not they die back naturally. The leaves are a rather gray-green to dark green and don’t have any particular fall color. The plant grows in any type of well-drained soil, is easily transplanted and has very few, if any, insect or disease problems. Buddleias are excellent plants to mass in a shrub border.
One last word, if you keep cutting the spent flowers off buddleias, they will bloom well into the fall. I’m glad we added this genus to our list. I enjoy watching them bloom in the nursery, and they have attracted many more butterflies to our area than we had in the past.