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Buddlia
June Storey
Posts: 2
My Buddlia has flowers high up on a 2m trunk. If I cut it to ground level, will I kill it?
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Posts
Highly unlikely - but I wouldn't cut it quite that low - I'd reduce it's height by half this autumn when it's finished flowering to prevent it getting rocked by the wind over the winter - then in early March cut it all back to just below knee height. Give it a sprinkling of Fish Blood and Bone and stand well back - it'll flower beautifully for you next summer, and the flowers will be at a height where you can see and enjoy them.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I have had them like that, took a chain saw to them and they shoot out everywhere next year.
June can't prune flower stalks she would need a ladder, but it definitely needs coming down, I have pruned autumn and Spring, it doesn't make much difference here, only that I get bigger flowers with an autumn prune, but if you are in a cold area it's best to wait till spring.
I could have done with one of those today, just attacked the rambling rose, miles of it, he is going to be so pleased when he gets home and I ask him to pick it!
I used to prune hard in the autumn where we used to live, about six miles from here, wouldnt risk it here though, just do a trim.
Our young neighbour had a huge old bush in his garden that wasn't doing much so I suggested he gave it a ruthless prune last autumn. He hacked (and I use the word advisedly!) it back to a 2 foot stump and this year it's a mass of soft growth and flower spikes, covered in butterflies. Sometimes being cruel in the garden pays dividends
I have a buddleia,,,dowsed it with glyphosate, cut it down to soil level with a chain saw...and yet it thrives and looks better than ever...... Arrrgh!
Pleeese, no more questions about pruning buddleia.
Nah!....It's the absence of apostrophes that sends my BP up.
David - what sends my BP up is when I read back and realise I've put in superfluous apostrophes
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I do both, Dove
maybe I'm competing for Verd's (was that one right?) 'mischievous' mantle. 