Gardening QA
Butterfly bush will flower up to the first frost, and trimming the faded blooms throughout the summer stimulates new growth and new blooms.
Posted: Monday, January 20, 2014 9:49 am
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Updated: 4:25 pm, Mon Jan 20, 2014.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Q: I planted a butterfly bush last spring. The plant has done well. Its shape and blooming have been perfect. Now it’s nearly 5 feet tall and I do not know how to take care of it. When and what do I feed it, and when should it be pruned, and how much?
Answer: It sounds like your butterfly bush is doing fine without additional fertilizer. Over the years, I’ve found that if plants are growing well, they will actually wind up growing too fast and we wind up having to cut them way back to maintain the size we want. As long as you’re happy with their growth, I wouldn’t add additional fertilizer. However, if they show signs of stress or poor performance, a complete fertilizer such as 5-10-10 or 5-10-5 would give them the nutrients they need to maintain vegetative growth and produce the blooms that attract butterflies.
Speaking of those blooms, they are key to determining when and how to prune your bush. As soon as the blooms begin to fade, pinch or clip them off. At the base of that old bloom will be new vegetative buds that will produce new leaves and more blooms. By continuing this process all summer, you’ll have a thick canopy and a continuous flow of fresh new blooms right up until fall.
Right now is a good time to look at the structure of the bush since it has lost its leaves for winter. You can thin out branches that are too close together, remove any really spindly branches and head back the end of each remaining branch. This will result in a sturdy frame to support the new growth that will begin once the plant breaks dormancy in the spring.
Q: Can you recommend a fast growing native shrub that keeps its green leaves in winter? Also, when is the best time to plant it?
Answer: I’m a real proponent of planting in the fall. Unfortunately, you’ve missed that window of opportunity for this year. My next favorite time for planting is late February or early March. By then we should be past the worst of winter and have good moisture in the ground. Planting that early in the spring allows plenty of time for your plants to get acclimated to their new site before having to go through a hot dry summer.
As for a good native evergreen, I really like bayberry or wax myrtle. Both make good screens, have little or no insect or disease problems and grow relatively fast. Bayberry is more of a northern species and wax myrtle is more commonly found in the South. Both grow very well in central Virginia and most good garden centers will have them.
Q: I have 10 evergreens in my backyard. This fall one of them died and the one closest to it is showing signs of dying. Any insight you can provide will be helpful.
Answer: I’m afraid your evergreens have been infested by bagworms. In the photo, you’ll see small brown bags hanging from many of the dead branches. Many of these bags contain eggs that will hatch out as tiny larvae or worms in mid to late April. Those larvae will begin to feed and immediately start building a new bag around them for protection. The bags are made from the needles of your evergreen, so they will remain green and be basically invisible until late June. At that time they will be an inch or so long and starting to turn brown. Unfortunately, by the time you see them, they are too mature for most insecticides to control.
My advice is to get rid of the dead evergreen, which will also remove any of the remaining bags that might contain eggs. As time allows this winter, hand remove any of the bags you can see on the adjacent plants. While you may not be able to remove them all, any that you can pick off will reduce the number of eggs left to hatch in the spring. The final step would be to treat them with an insecticide in late May or early June to control the new generation. Again, they will be small and hard to see, but relatively easy to control as immature larvae. Waiting too long will only result in damage to more of these plants. The folks at your favorite garden center will be able to recommend an insecticide that will control the bagworms.
It’s time to…
Sign up for some gardening classes. The horticulture staffs at Maymont and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden will offer a variety of classes during the next few months to help get your creative juices flowing. You can also contact your local office of the Virginia Cooperative Extension for a schedule of the classes they offer.
Richard Nunnally is a freelance writer and adjunct instructor in Horticulture at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. Contact: tdgarden@verizon.net.
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Monday, January 20, 2014 9:49 am.
Updated: 4:25 pm.
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