Right i have a butterfly in my garden which was put in by the last owners and is far to big for such a small garden. Whats the best way to go about getting rid of it? Can i poison it or should i just dig it up? Will digging it up be a hell of a job?


Thanks
Jonathan

In article ,
jglenny wrote:

Right i have a butterfly in my garden which was put in by the last
owners and is far to big for such a small garden. Whats the best way to
go about getting rid of it? Can i poison it or should i just dig it up?
Will digging it up be a hell of a job?

Assuming that you mean a Buddleia, and not Bauhinia, it is fairly easy
to dig up. But, if you quite like its flowers, and merely want to
reduce its size, that is equally easy. You can cut it back to a
stump every winter, and it will reshoot by about 10'. Most species
will flower well if treated like that.

You can use its older wood as firewood, incidentally.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
says...

Right i have a butterfly in my garden which was put in by the last
owners and is far to big for such a small garden. Whats the best way to
go about getting rid of it? Can i poison it or should i just dig it up?
Will digging it up be a hell of a job?



Prune it, as hard as you like. It will grow again and you can keep it
quite manageable by pruning each year.

"P.Burley" wrote in message

Right i have a butterfly in my garden which was put in by the last
owners and is far to big for such a small garden.

Prune it, as hard as you like. It will grow again and you can keep it
quite manageable by pruning each year.

Not my buddleia -- I cut it hard back in spring and the thing up and died on
me. Now I'm left with a big stump that I have to somehow dig out.

On Tue, 06 Sep 2005 14:51:15 GMT, "Gilly" wrote:

"P.Burley" wrote in message

Right i have a butterfly in my garden which was put in by the last
owners and is far to big for such a small garden.

Prune it, as hard as you like. It will grow again and you can keep it
quite manageable by pruning each year.

Not my buddleia -- I cut it hard back in spring and the thing up and died on
me. Now I'm left with a big stump that I have to somehow dig out.

I had a similar problem with a very old Buddleia. It was quite easy
to remove the stump (albeit a bit physical!). The roots were rotted
and with a bit of digging around the main stump they broke off easily.
It's brittle wood at the best of times.

Thanks for the replies, i did mean a budliea bush. I thought about just pruning it but i just don't like where it is. Should be easy enough to dig up then i just didn't know if the roots would go for miles?

In article ,
jglenny writes:
|
| Thanks for the replies, i did mean a budliea bush. I thought about just
| pruning it but i just don't like where it is. Should be easy enough to
| dig up then i just didn't know if the roots would go for miles?

No. If you don't like it, grub it. They are quick growing and
don't live for long (a decade or two, usually), and do not have
massive root systems.

I got rid of a biggish one a fortnight back. I am not saying
that the roots are SMALL, but they aren't unusual.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.