butterfly bush sick!!

Help! The leaves on my butterfly bush are fading to a yellow!
They looked very healthy 2 weeks ago!! Do they need a special fertilizer or ??
Thanks all!!

Can you post a picture? First thing I'd suggest is to check your watering, they are pretty drought tolerant and don't need a ton of water so you could be giving them too much. I've never fertilized mine and they do fine so that's not first on my list of suspects.

Yeah, maybe too much water? We have been getting a LOT of rain where I am in the Hudson Valley of N.Y. but mine look fine so far.

Thanks all!!

there are so many plants tagged "butterfly bush". it would really help to know just what plant you are referring to.

Trackinsand, it's a 'buddleia' hope I spelled it right!!

ok! a butterfly bush down south can mean a multitude of plants. up north, i should have realized what yours was....they don't need a tremendous amount of water and especially when established...almost all plants benefit from fertilizer.

I have a Black Knight butterfly bush that is doing the same thing. I believe though that mine is getting way too much water. It's rained here for days and days. It's still flowering well...but the leaves are turning yellowish. If I remember correctly...it did the same thing last year. I'm hoping that as soon as the rain stops and it actually gets some sun it will be fine.

mine turns yellow but it is from spider mites. im about to take it out. is it kind of speckled if you look closely? Mine doesn't get enough sun so it is suseptable to disease. this could be your problem as well. can you post a pic?

Spider mites don't like rain and humidity so I think too much water is more likely to be the problem, but it doesn't hurt to check.

Thanks Wonderearth, will check on the leaves, but think it is from too much water, may have to move it. It is close to my watering spigot so it does get watered a lot!!

mine had spider mite, i sprayed it good....and noticed the other day it get ALOT of humidity the dryer vent is just 3-4 feet away.....

Moved the bush to a dryer area and hope it works!!
Will keep you all updated...

My soil's pretty heavy, and I've found that for dry-climate plants, it's better to dig it out. I make a planting hole several times the volume of the root ball. Then I mix a couple shovelfuls each of coarse sand and Amend or compost with each bag of regular potting soil. I add a couple handfuls of gypsum and a handful of bone meal or high-phosphorus fertilizer to the pile, backfill with this, scatter shredded bark a couple inches thick on top, and soak everything. The water should drain through very fast.

Thanks matchlight! Do have a bag of perlite, can I use that??

Perlite's OK, if you have some. If you use sand, make sure it's the coarse kind, or you'll make things worse. The Amend is full of soil bacteria, which I think help the roots pull more nutrients into the plant.

Leaves wilty right now...shock from transplanting...hope it likes it in new spot!
I wonder if it is the type of buddlea....have some that look great...bought all different kinds.

All the ones you bought are probably cultivars of Buddleia davidii, that's the one that's the most widely available. The care for all of them should be similar. And even if it is a different species, the conditions they like would probably still be similar--I've got a collection of a number of different species all planted together in the same area of my garden and they all seem happy with the same conditions.

Thanks ecrane, we are supposed to get some sun today and get into 80's...WoW!
Got a lot of 'hens and chicks' plan to put them into rock wall at church, will try to wire them somehow into the wall so they can catch easier...