If you want a plant that attracts pollinators and requires very little maintenance indeed, then buddleia is the one. A lot of the time it will grow whether you want one or not, and can be cut back to stumps each year and still come back bigger and stronger in no time.
Its sweet smelling flowers are a magnet for insects, and if you come across one on your travels, be sure to look at the flower heads to see who is visiting. It could be anything.
Our small one at work seems to have some butterfly or other on it every time I walked past it. On this occasion it was a beautiful peacock, in A1 condition, that I somehow managed to get decent photos of despite the breeze.
A small tortoiseshell proved more problematic, and sadly these photos aren't as good. But, they'll do. They are colourful, at any rate!
There's even a first shot for the year of a common blue on pennyroyal as a bonus.
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.08.21
Yes, certainly bright and colourful! Once a buddleia establishes its root-system it can grow enormously each year no matter what you do to it.
ReplyDeleteSadly I have not seen many butterflies on the Buddleia bushes down here in the North.
ReplyDeleteBuddleia in Edinburgh just isn't the butterfly magnet it seems to be elsewhere, except for when the painted ladies arrive en masse.
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