I've been clearing out a neighbour's back garden which is a wilderness and
was untended for years. Amongst all the weeds are a few choice shrubs and a
Buddlea. This one had about seven ft of solid wood with some new buds just
breaking above that. That was 3 weeks ago

I decided to prune the woody stems back by over half, so that shrub is about
2 ft tall now. and so far no signs of new buds have appeared on what
remains. Have I been too drastic and killed this Buddleia?

On Sun, 16 Mar 2014 22:15:58 +0000, Chris Hogg wrote:

Have I been too drastic and killed this Buddleia?

Unlikely. They're pretty tough IME.

+1

Three weeks isn't that long for new buds to start to break. Give it a
couple more months and I reckon it'll be up to 4ft and looking very
healthy.

Even if it doesn't do very much this year leave it 'till the end of
next year or even the year after before giving up on it. May be give
the remains a *gentle* tug in the spring and autumn. If it doesn't
very easily pull out it ain't dead.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 16/03/2014 19:07, Frank Booth wrote:
I've been clearing out a neighbour's back garden which is a wilderness and
was untended for years. Amongst all the weeds are a few choice shrubs and a
Buddlea. This one had about seven ft of solid wood with some new buds just
breaking above that. That was 3 weeks ago

I decided to prune the woody stems back by over half, so that shrub is about
2 ft tall now. and so far no signs of new buds have appeared on what
remains. Have I been too drastic and killed this Buddleia?

Unless you used thermonuclear weapons on it this seems unlikely.

I have known them come back from being sawn off at ground level.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:23:36 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:

Unless you used thermonuclear weapons on it this seems unlikely.

I have known them come back from being sawn off at ground level.

+1