Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii)
A hard to miss, common sight in our region’s gardens and landscape plantings, the Butterfly Bush with its fragrant conical blooms is fluttering butterflies and buzzing bees. Originally from central China, the Butterfly Bush grows easily in the Okanagan and Shuswap climates.
However eye-catching, hardy, and extremely attractive to butterflies and other pollinators, Butterfly Bush is far from beneficial; in fact it impairs the health of our local ecosystems. Butterfly Bush is a deciduous shrub that can grow up to 15 feet high. The opposite-growing leaves, 5-10 inches long, have jagged edges. Butterfly Bush blooms from mid-summer to early fall.
The flowers of the Butterfly Bush form drooping or upright spikes at the end of branches. The wild-origin species is white-flowered with orange or yellow centers. Varieties bred for the garden are typically purple; or they may have pink, blue, magenta, yellow or maroon blooms.
The Butterfly Bush is extremely successful at reproduction as a single flower head can produce over 40,000 seeds giving it a competitive advantage over native flowering shrubs.
The extremely lightweight, winged seeds travel far distances by way of water or wind and can remain viable for three to five years in soil. Any cut stems can also sprout again. Butterfly Bush benefits pollinators but only at one stage of their life cycle. The problem with the Butterfly Bush is that it doesn’t offer any viable food source for freshly hatched eggs (caterpillars) of the butterfly. The butterfly reproduction cycle ends at this plant as it has been observed that newly hatched caterpillars don’t feed on the leaves and therefore starve.
In addition, the Butterfly Bush also tends to spread enormously shading out other plants that support the life cycles of butterflies. It establishes in sunny, well-drained sites including fields, roadsides, woods edges, and riverbanks, where native shrubs would have grown. Those vanished native shrubs were also essential food sources for caterpillars. Without caterpillars, there will be no adult butterflies. Without caterpillars, birds will not survive.
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