This is a Summer Lilac. It is also known as Buddleia Davidii or Butterfly Bush, but I like the name Summer Lilac. It lets me imagine that I can hold on to spring time so long as the bush is in bloom, and this bush blooms all summer. We had one long ago, but it got torn out as part of our massive landscaping project back in 1999. I bought this one last Wednesday when I ventured into a garden center. I was there for basil plants, because Gleek had brought home a tiny basil sprout from a neighbor and lovingly planted it in our weed-filled garden bed. I knew the traumatized little sprout would not survive, so I went in quest of a larger basil plant for Gleek to tend. I came home with six plants and a wish list of a hundred or more. I need more time, more money, and more garden space. This summer lilac was one of the plants. It sits in a bucket on my back deck because I’ve not had a cool evening hour in which to plant yet. Tomorrow I’ll get it into the ground. It is a promise to myself that I’ll do more in my garden than just tame weeds. I want to be nurturing loveliness as well. The summer lilac will help me, because it will bring butterflies into my garden.
2 thoughts on “Summer Lilac”
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If you like lilacs, have you ever heard of the Josee reblooming lilac? Once the blooms wither, you pinch them off and a few weeks later there are new blooms all throughout the summer.
If these are the same Buddleia we get in England, beware where you plant it. Yes, butterflies love it, yes, it grows really well. It also EATS HOUSES and takes over gardens. Seriously, it destroys walls really quickly and grows like stink. My husband and I once went to view a house that seemed really cheap, but the frontage looked ok – a bit beaten up, but nothing that time and work couldn’t fix. Then we were shown round and into the kitchen – or rather, where the kitchen used to be before a massive Buddleia had eaten it! Only half of the walls and a fragment of the roof remained, and the house hadn’t been empty more than a few years.