Until relatively recently the only shrub in my new garden was a buddleja the size of a van. We’ve not done much out there since we moved last August; the house has been a near-permanent building site and, frankly, I was overwhelmed by it all. So I’ve been grateful to local gardener and designer Charlie Chase for helping me forge the beginnings of a garden from a wilderness.
The things he’s lovingly unearthed from a sea of green alkanet are now beginning to show themselves. Just this morning, as I pegged out the washing, I noticed a Clematis armandi had started flowering. The bulbs I lifted from the old garden last spring are settling into their new homes too, along with dozens of supermarket daffs, which I correctly assumed would cheer us all up.
The buddleja, however, continues to be mildly threatening. I actually have a great fondness for these sprawling purple plants; they were one of the first shrubs I learned to recognise as a child (“the butterfly bush”) and I admire their tenacity. Our railway lines, urban stations, rooftops and cracks in the pavement would be far less colourful without them. And they can be very beautiful, erupting, firework-like, at the back of a mixed border in late summer. Container-friendly varieties, such as Buddleja x pikei “Uniqued” have a pleasing Oscar the Grouch-like quality, offering a burst of romantic unruliness.
Nevertheless, I want this jumbo buddleja gone – or at least shrunk. Its footprint isn’t much smaller than the average city courtyard garden. There’s a beautiful old south-facing wall behind it that deserves to shine. And I have plans to make a horticultural den at the bottom of the garden for the children to hide in.
I mention all this because now is a good time to take charge if you also have buddlejas that have been enjoying their freedom. Unpruned buddlejas give the plant its reputation for being scraggly: you can end up with wildly tall branches, more leaf and stem than flower. Cut it back hard between now and early April, though, and you will be rewarded with a neater shape and more purple blooms – which is good news for pollinators, too.
With Buddleja davidii – the most familiar, purple big boy – you really can’t be too brutal. Cut the stems right back to the first shoot, even if that’s a few centimetres above the ground. You’ll need loppers or a pruning saw – you’ll wreck your secateurs if you go in with those – and do spend a few minutes making sure they’re clean and sharp. But if you’ve got a Buddleja alternifolia, hold fire: this needs pruning in midsummer, or you’ll lose the flowers on last year’s stems.
