Ahh, that's right... rain popped into my head, but when I was up
there, it wasn't that it rained, it was just cloudy 9 out of 10 days
of a week. Kept waiting for the sun to say "Hi!"... and waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting...

We found a lake on the Olympic Peninsula and we decided
to stop the car and jump. That water was great! Very brisk.

--
Jim Carlock
Please post replies to newsgroup.

"Travis" wrote:
Jim Carlock wrote:
"Doug Kanter" mentioned:
Perhaps buddleia likes the humidity in Washington, and even if the
temps were identical all year to those in, say, upstate NY, it
would still want that humidity. Or something.

"Travis" explained from the rainforests of Washington and Vancouver:
We don't have what you would call humid weather.

g It's not humid. It just rains 9 out of 10 days of a week?

The rain forests are on the Olympic Peninsula.
http://www.nps.gov/olym/edurain.htm

--

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

Doug Kanter wrote:
"Travis" wrote in message
news:L841e.10412$uw6.5991@trnddc06...
Doug Kanter wrote:
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "Warren" contains these words:
. It doesn't reseed.

Are you kidding? Buddleia seeds all over the place. Tall
derelict buildings here have 8ft seedlings growing in the roof
gutters and chimneys; railways spend a fortune clearing miles of
buddeia seedlings from track-sides. After the wartime blitzes in
UK cities, buddleia was one of the plants that colonised the
bombsites. I still love it.

Janet (UK)

Sounds like what Travis just said about Washington. Not sure WHERE
in Washington he's from, so I don't know if it's like Minnesota or
upstate NY, where, in winter, the wind sucks the life out of
everything. Even automobiles have been known to shrivel up.

I'm where my sig says I am.

Amazing. It was printed right there. :-) So, does winter shrivel up
automobiles where you live, or is the weather somewhat tempered by
the proximity of the ocean?

Tempered a lot. It rarely gets below 20 and usually above freezing for
most of the winter with rain instead of snow. This winter we have had
way below normal recipitation, the mountains are for the most part
snowless and the melting snow is where we get our water in the summer.

--

Travis in Shoreline Washington

"Doug Kanter" expounded:


"Ann" wrote in message
.. .
"Doug Kanter" expounded:

Marginally hardy south of Boston??? The plant does fine here (Rochester
NY),
where the winter makes yours look like a trip to a day spa. What sort of
miniclimates do you have around your house?

The constant warming/frost, etc. causes them to start growing too
early, then they get caught by a hard freeze and it kills them. You
stay more consistently cool until you warm. Big difference.

Mulch!!! Use whatever you've got. Straw, leaves, dead carcasses of
neighbors' dogs. Anything.

It's far easier to just not prune before you see new growth. Really!
Mulch isn't the issue, although it's never a bad idea.

--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

"Ann" wrote in message
...
"Doug Kanter" expounded:


"Ann" wrote in message
. ..
"Doug Kanter" expounded:

Marginally hardy south of Boston??? The plant does fine here (Rochester
NY),
where the winter makes yours look like a trip to a day spa. What sort of
miniclimates do you have around your house?

The constant warming/frost, etc. causes them to start growing too
early, then they get caught by a hard freeze and it kills them. You
stay more consistently cool until you warm. Big difference.

Mulch!!! Use whatever you've got. Straw, leaves, dead carcasses of
neighbors' dogs. Anything.

It's far easier to just not prune before you see new growth. Really!
Mulch isn't the issue, although it's never a bad idea.

So many dogs, so little time.....sigh.......

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:15:50 GMT, "Doug Kanter" wrote:

This is the only flower I've ever seen which attracted bees the size of
grapefruits. Absolutely amazing to watch.

Grapefruits! Damn, I'm lucky (or is that unlucky?) to see ones the size of kumquats!

Here's a photo of a bee on a butterfly bush that I took last year (can't comment on the pruning
thereof, it was my first year having some)

http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/db.jpg

"Doug Kanter" expounded:

So many dogs, so little time.....sigh.......

Dogs don't hunt well when they're barking up the wrong tree ;-
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

"Ann" wrote in message
...
"Doug Kanter" expounded:

So many dogs, so little time.....sigh.......

Dogs don't hunt well when they're barking up the wrong tree ;-

You're leading us off topic, Ann. Keep it simple. Murder a dog today.

"Travis" wrote in message
news:A741e.10406$uw6.7897@trnddc06...
Doug Kanter wrote:
"Travis" wrote in message
news:TG%0e.9520$uw6.974@trnddc06...
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.

Some plants are unbelievably picky about the environment they're
grown in, in order to REALLY hit their stride. Take rosemary as an
example. Looks like it's tough as nails when it's growing happily.
But, bring it indoors for the winter (and I mean REAL winter, as in
Maine straight west to Montana), and rosemary sulks or drops dead.
Look at the same plant in its native environment and it's
unstoppable. Perhaps buddleia likes the humidity in Washington, and
even if the temps were identical all year to those in, say, upstate
NY, it would still want that humidity. Or something.

We don't have what you would call humid weather.

I was just guessing, since (in theory), people from Seattle are supposedly
accustomed to living with lots of rain.

"Ann" wrote in message
...
"Doug Kanter" expounded:


"Ann" wrote in message
. ..
"Doug Kanter" expounded:

Marginally hardy south of Boston??? The plant does fine here (Rochester
NY),
where the winter makes yours look like a trip to a day spa. What sort of
miniclimates do you have around your house?

The constant warming/frost, etc. causes them to start growing too
early, then they get caught by a hard freeze and it kills them. You
stay more consistently cool until you warm. Big difference.

Mulch!!! Use whatever you've got. Straw, leaves, dead carcasses of
neighbors' dogs. Anything.

It's far easier to just not prune before you see new growth. Really!
Mulch isn't the issue, although it's never a bad idea.

So many dogs, so little time.....sigh.......

"Ann" wrote in message
...
"Doug Kanter" expounded:


"Ann" wrote in message
. ..
"Doug Kanter" expounded:

Marginally hardy south of Boston??? The plant does fine here (Rochester
NY),
where the winter makes yours look like a trip to a day spa. What sort of
miniclimates do you have around your house?

The constant warming/frost, etc. causes them to start growing too
early, then they get caught by a hard freeze and it kills them. You
stay more consistently cool until you warm. Big difference.

Mulch!!! Use whatever you've got. Straw, leaves, dead carcasses of
neighbors' dogs. Anything.

It's far easier to just not prune before you see new growth. Really!
Mulch isn't the issue, although it's never a bad idea.

So many dogs, so little time.....sigh.......

Doug Kanter wrote:
"Travis" wrote in message
news:A741e.10406$uw6.7897@trnddc06...
Doug Kanter wrote:
"Travis" wrote in message
news:TG%0e.9520$uw6.974@trnddc06...
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.

Some plants are unbelievably picky about the environment they're
grown in, in order to REALLY hit their stride. Take rosemary as an
example. Looks like it's tough as nails when it's growing happily.
But, bring it indoors for the winter (and I mean REAL winter, as
in Maine straight west to Montana), and rosemary sulks or drops
dead. Look at the same plant in its native environment and it's
unstoppable. Perhaps buddleia likes the humidity in Washington,
and even if the temps were identical all year to those in, say,
upstate NY, it would still want that humidity. Or something.

We don't have what you would call humid weather.

I was just guessing, since (in theory), people from Seattle are
supposedly accustomed to living with lots of rain.

Having lots of rain is in my mind different than having humid summers
like in the midwest, East and the Southeast. It is raining today and
the humidity is 93% but the temperature is only 39 degrees so it doesn't
feel humid/muggy even though it factually is humid.

--

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