What is wrong with my butterfly bush?

I planted this bush last year. It is shaded by a red bud tree. I fertilized it twice and it gets plenty of water. What am I doing wrong? I'm new at this and may have all the wrong instincts.

Here's a close-up

I could be off the mark but did the flowers open? If so, it could just be they're going to seed.

It has flowered, They look scrawny and the plant as a whole looks sick.

Then it could be too much water. How much does it get? Overwatering is the biggest plant killer.

Have you noticed any bugs on it?

I may be over watering. The bed has a sprinkler hose running through it as well as a drip line to various bushes in the bed. It runs on a daily timer for about an hour. I'll look for bugs while I'm mowing today. Thanks for your help.

Check in the soil, too. Bugs reside there, as well. Stick you finger in the ground. If the ground is moist, hold off on watering until it's dry about 2-3 inches down. Good luck. It's a beautiful plant.

Also, J, how much sun is it getting? They really like a lot of sun and the redbud may be creating too much shade for it to perform at its' best.

Considering you have another wilting plant on another thread and you have more-than-adequate irrigation, I would point to overwatering.

I agree--daily watering for an hour sounds like too much. I water mine once a week at most. They can handle more water than what I'm giving them and your soil and climate are not the same as mine so you may need to water on a somewhat different frequency, but an hour a day sounds like way too much.

J, the "rule of thumb" so to speak on watering is 1 inch of rain fall per week for an established plant. You are literally drowning your plant. I don't know what the GPM flow rate is on your irrigation, but you say you have soaker and drip. Water displaces oxygen in the soil and a plants roots need to be able to access that oxygen in order to survive, not to mention that roots rot when they stay wet. For the larger plants, shrubs, trees etc. even in drought conditions, 1 in of water per week should be adequate for them planted in the ground.

Thanks for the help, I'll back off on the water.

Your Butterfly Bush is lanky in growth, and the leaves are spaced too far apart. Those are signs of not enough sunligh. These plants are sunlovers. They require a well drained soil, in full sun with moderate moisture.

Although they are recommended to zone 5, I grow them in zone 4. They die down to the roots, but they come back every spring. I trim mine back in the spring to 5". They are slow to wake up in the spring. They wait until warm weather. Once they start, they grow pretty quickly.

If you need to transplant a BB bush, do it in the spring before growth starts. I had to do that with one that wasn't getting enough sun. The roots are large and difficult to dig up. Mine was replanted at age 3 and survived

Also, to keep then blossoming snip off dead buds.......Dead head.
I do it all the time on mine and they blossom more.
blooma, I read that you can cut them back to the ground. Not sure If I would want to go that far back with my two, but I do cut them back to about 3 inches. I also plan on cutting them back this fall. One was late taking off this year, and I think it may have been because it wasn't cut back early.

kassy_51 Cutting back to 3" in the fall is fine. I have forgotten a few times and had to do it early spring before growth started. I saw no difference in growth or blooms.

Now that it's done blooming, wouldn't it be safe to say a hit of systemic insecticide is in order? I killed one with too much water but I found soil mites last year in that area. Maybe I could have saved it.

blooma, I saw a difference on my youngest one, or the one that I had bought last. I cut the older one back first in the spring, because there was new growth on it, but I waited a while for the one that I had gotten last. It had a very slow start. Not quite sure why yet, but is now taller and in bloom, and the other one still had just buds last time I looked............Sorry, there both at my BF's house, so I only get to see them every other weekend. Like having visitation??

My royal red, the slow starter ^_^

From the pictures it doesn't look as if you cut off your old blooms. It seems to have plenty of them, but maybe cutting off your dead flowers would encourage it to bloom or even cutting the whole plant back a little might encourage it.

So, when you cut off the spent blooms where exactly do you cut? At the first leaf, further down or right below the bloom?

I snip mine off right below where the blossom was, they seem to shoot new buds out from that leaf area then.

When you cut back any shrub, make the cut in the direction you want the branch to grow. In other words, if you want a branch to grow outwards (best for ventilation in the center), then cut right above that stem. The branch just under the cut will take over as the leader and grow in the direction you wanted.

It doesn't matter where on choosen branch you make the cut---low near the ground, or higher up. The result will be the same as far as the direction the branch will grow.