Warren wrote:
John Thomas 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


Butterfly bush is not invasive. As the first sentence in the link
you provided states, "An invasive plant has the ability to thrive
and spread aggressively outside its natural range." That means you
plant one or two, and eventually you get dozens spreading from the
originally intended spot. Butterfly bushes don't do that.

Butterfly bush is a very aggressive grower. A single plant can go
from not much more than a stick with a couple of leaves to a bush
big enough to hide a small shack in just a few months. But you
won't have a dozen new butterfly bushes.

It's a very aggressive grower, but it's not the least bit invasive.

You want to get rid of it? Just dig up the one plant, and you're
done with it. It doesn't send out runners. It doesn't reseed. It
won't come back from that little bit of root you missed.

It reseeds like crazy in my neck of the woods.

--

Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington
USDA Zone 8b
Sunset Zone 5