In article , wrote:

I realize they're pretty plants and are a blast to have around if you
like watching insects, but given it's vigor, flowering rates, overall
hardiness and other traits, why doesn't buddleia strike people as a
potentially dangerous plant?

Why in god's name would anyone dump something like this into the
environment? (If this was GMO corn, people would be burning down fabric
mills in anger. :-)


http://www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/invasives.html

B. davidii is in the top-20 invasive pest-plants in England. It has never
been given such a high pest status in the USA, as it is believed to share
the environment rather than displace native species, a debatable premise.
There is no question but that it is long naturalized on both coasts.

Here in Kitsap County, Washington state, it is common along major highways
& puts on quite a show every summer. I've wondered whether these were
planned plantings from before it was known to be a bad idea (scotch brooms
were planted along our roadsides on purpose to hold up embankments, then
fifty years later it is illegal to harbor them, but that's about 50 years
too late to stop their eternal spread; in the east they made the same
mistake with Japanese barberries), or whether the roadside butterfly
bushes are all self-seeded escapees.

However, many of the cultivars, including virtually all the semi-dwarfs
which are still quite big, have a low rate of viable seed, & are not the
same plants as those which have already escaped cultivation. Plus, if the
shrubs are pruned back in early autumn, they will not have the opportunity
to disperse seeds. There's also the alternative butterfly bush B. globosa,
which isnt' invasive.

Another commonly planted invasive shrub is Hibiscus syriacus
rose-of-sharon. But a great many sterile cultivars do exist. A whole
series of sterile rose of sharons were developed at the very National
Aboretum you cited above, & I have one of these, called 'Aphrodite.'

-paghat the ratgirl
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