Thursday, July 31, 2008

Poor Butterfly (Bush)

I used to have a nice butterfly bush. Tall, willowy, lots of flowers swaying in the breeze. Butterflys loved it.



Then something happened. Last year I cut it down in March the same way I always have, but this time it didn't grow any new shoots except for one. All last summer I just had the one little stem. It only got to be about 12 inches high but it did get one flower on top. That was it. Since it wasn't completely dead I thought that this year even if not back to normal, it would start growing a lot more. Not so. This year it did managed to get 2 new stems, about 24 inches high, now with a flower on each. Maybe next year it will be up to three. Alas, what once was, is no longer. How pathetic is this poor thing?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what are you recommending now? Seems I asked you what you did since I just planted one last fall. I would guess whatever you told me is now moot:-) Mine is about 4-5' tall now, and I'd hate to lose it. Any suggestions?

Sorry about yours:-) No, really, I am sorry.
SisterNan

Anonymous said...

...me again--love your butterfly & bush photo!!!

flydragon said...

Uh huh. I can tell you're really sorry. Don't have any suggestions for you since I don't know what happened to mine. You must be doing everything right since it's growing pretty good since last fall. How about a picture, show off.

Roses and Lilacs said...

They aren't very reliable in this area. Sometimes they survive the winter, often not. This year I didn't purchase a new one.
Marnie

flydragon said...

I looked at my old 2007 calendar and saw that in the first week of April we went from 60 - 75deg. down to 28 - 31 deg. and got 9-1/2 inches of snow. I'll bet that's what did the little fella in. After seeing that, I'm surprised that it didn't totally die off.

Naturegirl said...

I cannot understand why this happened? I too cut my bush down to about 3 ft. early Spring and wow the
bush is flourishing just beautifully!I've done this 3 years in a row.
Perhaps this winter you can protect it with some extra mulch..oops I don't remember what zone you're from.
Sometimes a severe winter makes plants disappear.In my garden of zone 6 it happens regularly..darn!

flydragon said...

Welcome Naturegirl,
I was very surprised when this happened. I've had this bush for at least 6-7 years, and have never had a problem before. It's trying to stay alive, poor thing, and hopefully it will make a full recovery. I live about 1/2 mile from Lake Erie so I consider this to be zone 6 also.

Anonymous said...

Hope your bush does better next year. Looking across the street, behind the fence I see a huge white butterfly bush,lots of blooms and just as many butterflys. You can see it about four feet higher than the fence. middle sis

flydragon said...

What kind of butterflys?

Anonymous said...

Conrad said they were the yellow and black ones like in your photo. He also said there were only about three or four, not as many as I said. The bush is really as tall as I said though. Middle sis

flydragon said...

So you admit you lie??