Guide to Planting and Pruning Butterfly Bush

JennLearn the intricacies of planting a butterfly bush right and pruning the plant so it continues to draw admiration from butterflies, hummingbirds and humans! Also in this video, expert tips on how to create the ideal growing environment for your butterfly bush, how to repel weeds, and much more.

Hi, everyone, this is Scott with Spring Hill Nurseries and today, we're going to plant some butterfly bush. These are beautiful plants that attract tons of butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden. The most important thing to think about when planting a butterfly bush is how to prepare the ground, okay? What you want to do is you want to pick an area that's going to get full sun, okay, and has really good soil that's well drained. And we're going tp talk a little bit about how to prepare this area. Think about the fact that your butterfly bush is going to get pretty big. It can get over five-foot-tall and a few feet wide, okay? So, it's perfect for a back of the garden scene so in front of it, we can plant other perennials and really have a nice look, but you want to pick an area that gets lots of sun and has some space to it ust like this, here. What I've done is, I've cultivated the soil about twelve to fifteen inches deep, okay, coz you really want it mixed up. Put some organic matter in there, get it real rich and ready, and then dig your hole. Your hole should be about twice the width of the pot that the plant comes in. The plant will come potted which makes it very easy to plant. You're going to take it gently out of the pot, and as you place it, you want to plant it at the same depth that it's in the pot, so, right here should be the soil line. You're going to take loose soil and put it around the root ball, okay? Around here, and you can mix it up a little bit. Some people like to feather the bottom. Get it in, mix it up, okay! So, you want that loose soil around the roots, and then we're going to fill the hole. The butterfly bush is planted and now I'm just adding a top layer here of some organic compost, or mulch will be perfect. That helps keep the weeds out, keep the moisture in. To take care of your butterfly bush, all you really have to do is, in the early spring, before new growth appears, you're going to want to prune it all the way down to the ground and then add a new layer of compost or mulch and just keep watering it. And you don't have to do a lot of watering either. If you're not getting an inch of rainfall each week, you're going to want to give it a good watering and that's it! You're going to have beautiful blooms and it really makes a garden. So, for Spring Hill Nurseries, I'm Scott.