Butterfly bush

Almost time to cut down the butterfly bushes...
Migration is just about over now.

The flowers are almost gone. Question, do the flowers turn to seed?
Sandy
P.S. Duh!

I find your question to be a good one. Just the other day I cut open an old flower still bearly hanging onto the plant hoping to find tiny seeds. If there was seed there I was unable to see them. I don't know if they are just that small or what. The base of the flower was still pretty green.

Seeds are like dust in a butterfly bush...in fact, dust in my house is bigger...LOL. I've never saved any that I've grown, but have ordered them before.

Seeds must be stratified to germinate. I sprinkle the dust over some barely damp potting mix and put in the fridge for 6 weeks...labled 'These are not Brownies...Do Not Eat!'

LOL
Nice is see a Western KY person on here tonight :)

Thanks for the reply..
Love , dust in my house is bigger! so funny and I can relate to that.
I'll look for dust as I cut it down.. If found, I'll share.
Sandy

Well I took melody's advice and just cut about 5 or 6 (drying) flowers off our Butterfly Bush and placed them into a ziplock bag. Can't wait to see my stand next year!

Can we take cuttings off a butterfly bush??
Thanks, Ingrid

Paridise, cuttings can be rooted with (in my experience) a bit of patience. I have rooted new green wood cuttings as well as hard wood....I have also lost just as many as I have had root. Very hit and miss for me.
Others may tell you different, but for me......
1: I take a six to eight inch cutting.
2: Strip off all but the top few leaves
3: Bury the cuttings in loose well draining soil with two or more leaf nods buried....roots will sprout from these nodes.

In warmer weather this can take 6 to 8 weeks.....in colder temps it will certainly take longer. Most of my cuttings taken at this time of year have done noting till Spring when they put on new top growth as well as roots.
Please look for other info from more knowledgable people, as like I said I have had hit and miss, successes.

RikerBear-Thanks, so much for your advice and all.
Ingrid

My pleasure........I hope some of it helps. I failed to mention that ALL the cuttings I tried to root indoors failed miserably, so I highly recommend out door rooting.
Keep the cuttings well moistened and sheltered from direct hot sun till they are rooted and growing.
They are than easily dug up and either potted up or transplanted to their perminate bed.

Great Thanks, RikerBear
Ingrid

I have one more trick that I have found to help when rooting butterfly bush, put about 7 cuttings in the pot together. It seems to root better when there are several cuttings together. Don't ask me why, cause I don't know, I just know someone else told me this and it really works.
Sandra

Good to know Sandra.....I'll try that too :-)

I am trying not to give up on the smaller seed like Butterfly bush or so many others. This year, like last year, Iam taking all the spent flowers and popping them into a huge, plastic, seamless bucket and drying them there. Once I remove all the wood and leaves, I should have thousands (I hope) of seeds mixed in the the chaffe and flower debris. Not terribly good for trading, but it works for growing more plants. I have many new plants this year from last year's attempt.

Oh good for you.....I gave up on trying to ID the seed from mine last year. I'd love to see some of your seedling pix.

They are fairly large now, but I can go pop out and take a few pics. What I didn't do and I regret, it to figure out if I tie a thin 1/8" dark purple ribbon on the the Black Knights and a red ribbon one on the red butterflies, I would know which was which. Sigh...

These are not going to be so terribly good as it's too cold ou there for these bones and I am too lazy to separate them. Hope you forgive me. The flat with the butterflies is indicated by a red arrow.

Good lord woman! That is quite the collection of seedlings! WOW!
The BB seedlings look every bit like my cuttings......were these all started from last years seed?
Thanks for braving the cold to post the pic :-)

Marc

Closer up shot, the plant tops are indicated by red arrows, the pots you can see have been 'painted' blue. The tall one is hopefully turning into a "weeping butterfly" this year. I read an article once that was really grand. Trim up the plant, leaving the main stem and let it grow to several feet. Then start pinching it and end up with all the growth stemming from the one area at the top of your main stem. You end up with a weeping butterfly.

Marc, thanks! Blushing here. That is only a tiny bit of what I call the nursery. All the BB's are from seed planted spring of this year, everything there was started this year, from 2003 seed. But, notice there are less than a dozen, Not a good rate considering I sowed many, many more seeds than that.

I had this brilliant idea a few years ago, now I am wondering how brilliant it was. We wanted to landscape one of the last empty area of the yard, I am figuring the cost of the plants and thinking we might have to sell one fo the children. Plus I wanted another Clevelandii sage, very hard to find and we love the fragrance. Then it dawned on me that I could propagate what I had. Then it became a challenge, then it became a monster. I can't stop. Trying to find homes for almost a dozen Cherimoya trees now, not to mention the Eucalyptus, Chitalpas, Catalpas, on and on. You should have seen me in a panic last night out there with a flashlight trying to locate the snail vines to get them in the winter greenhouse.

To funny! I am just beginning to get the propagation bug......I've started butterfly bushes, Pieris, Weigela, forsythia, and blue potato vine so far. Not to mention all the seeds I've started and plan to start. If everything grows as planned I will need to rent nursery space. LOL
Good luck with all your babies :-)

Pieris? Weigela? Oh, we need to trade!!! I lost my Pieris last year, almost cried over that one. Bought another at HD the other day, but it's the Fire Mountain, (?) and not the same colour as my original. Now, be careful, it is VERY addicting.

I'm not sure my Pieris are worth trading yet....they are only tiny 6 inch starts. It would be years andnyears before they are of any decent size I fear. And my 2 weigela were sent off already....but I do have more rooting in the nursery bed, so come Spring I'll let ya know. :-)

Seeds? Insert hopeful look. If you end up with seeds, let me know? Just keep me in mind. : )

Ladyannne. . .do you have mature Chitalpa trees there in Merced? Do they lose their leaves in the summer like the ones here do?. . .seems to be a problem with them in many parts of the valley, kind of look sickly after the nice bloom period. .. just curious about yours. janet

You have fairly well described ours, Janet. I have a twenty plus year old and four smaller babies I am trying to find homes for before they grow out of their 25 gallon containers. Absolutely exquisite in bloom in the spring, now it looks unhappy, leafless. I did photograph a bloom on it last month, http://davesgarden.com/pdb/showimage/57731/ but most of the leaves were gone by that time. I thought this was a Catalpa (misunderstood the person identifying it) and finally discovered it was a CHITalpa. You have them down there too? I thought they were fairly uncommon.

Not sure how common they are in the valley, but UC is doing a research project on them, trying to determine what causes them to decline in the valley. . .no conclusive results that I know of yet. This year, the bark on the trunks is noticeably split in the two that I'm familiar with, though they're not as old as yours; a new occurrence this year. . maybe I should post in the 'Trees & Shrubs' Forum and see if anyone there has experience with them.

Sorry, guys, didn't mean to hijack this thread :-( but when I saw ladyannne's post, it reminded me. . .I'll exit now and let you get back to 'Butterfly Bushes' ;-)

Keep me posted if you should hear anything, Janet. Thanks!

Keep me posted if you should hear anything, Janet. Thanks! Think we might be BB'd out anyway. : )

BB propagation ----> fullproof and full blown, multibranched plants by mid-July!
Techinque is called 'layering' which I'd done in ground with with forsythia, dogwoods and sambucas. This spring I got a wild hair and decided to try it in pots on BB branch that was parallel and at ground level. I placed a 1gal pot of soil mix directly under a node spaced far enough apart that the branch would be able to flex between pots. The node was then covered with an inch of the soil mix and a rock placed on top to keep it buried and it also helps retain moisture/keep the node cool where the roots grow from. Just make sure you don't let the pots dry out. I think I did this in April when I was cutting butterfly bushes back. I had 4 pots along that branch and by July I discovered they all had roots out the bottom and into the ground! I kept 1 and gave 3 to friends and and they all grew after transplanting with no signs of shock or slowdown. They all grew, branched, bloomed better than any I've brought home from the nurseries.
FWIW, I also applied the same technique to a stray Jack Manii clematis tendril. I kept adding another pot as the main vine grew. By the fall plant swap I had 6 pots of Jack Manii's. Each full of white, vigorous roots and were just starting to sneak out the bottom of the pots.
Next year I will have butterfly bush and clematis up the wazoooo! I've never seen anyone bring those to the plant swaps except one guy working on a master gardener's qual who had to practice grafting on a yellow butterfly. My layered starts were far more vigorous!!!

Eight foot, what did you use to keep the soil around the stem? I played with that this year and was very unhappy with the results, the soil kept drying out or couldn't be wet easily again. I tried plastic wrap (which does NOT work even if perforated) and I wanted to try sheeted peat moss, the things you buy for wire hanging pots but never got around to it. I thought about the kind of netting fabric they use for the sock to feed niger thistle to birds....whoops, you are talking layering in the ground, not air layering? Gee, Anne, wake up.

Well, sense I typed it out, anyone have any ideas on air layering? I layer so many of mine, it is wonderful. The BB, however is to upright to bend the branches down now, maybe it's too old a plant? I LOVE layering. Dittany of Crete, mints, the clematis, violet trumpet vine, so many later sooo easily. I want to air layer my Daphne (LOVE Daphne, I want more, more, more) and can't get the air layering to work.

OMG! Every year I have a different phase of plants or experiments I go through.
I had already envisioned bubble wrapped balls ALL over the yard for spring 2005.
btw, I'm layering in soil but in pots rather than in ground. Works beautifully and I don't have to wait a year before cutting them free so as not to cause shock digging up the root ball.

Air Layering - SPHAGNUM moss, absolutely. Scrape off some bark to expose the cambium (I'll do three narrower strips at equal spots around the stem to get more evenly distributed root growth but it's probably overkill). Wrap a good handful of the sphagnum sheet moss, not dripping, but wet, around the stem ensuring to cover above and below the wound. I soak mine in water from an aquarium the wring out the excess. The waters warm and also has nutrients to boot. Wrap bubble wrap around that and tie the top and bottom. The bubble wrap being clear, you'll be able to see the roots coming through and know it's time to cut loose without having to untie/unwrap for root checks. You'll also be able to see the condensation inside the bubblewrap so you know it hasn't dried out.

We'll have to share results and pics next year. For as much as they like to charge for clematis, I'm not cutting back some of my favorites in the spring. Instead, I'm cutting them loose from their supports and layering myself to death. I also wanted true clones of my Blue Bird hybiscus and since I'll be limbing up next spring to start training to a standard form, I decided I'd air layer all branches destined to be cut off. Then... I decided I'd also air layer my Prunus Mackii, the Canoe and Clump River birches, my favorite nectarines (for future espalier project), the Sutherland Gold Sambucus.... and you get the idea. :)

I should have written 'pots' in there as well, as I always layer into pots. MUCH easier on the new baby to simply cut it free. I use big stones painted bright red in the layering pots to hold down the rooting stems (which are on a tray most the time if I am layering from another pot) to indicate to anyone who might come along and need to move them that they are attached, pick them up all together if you must. I get pots at the dollar store, oh heaven. They will carry a pallet of pots anywhere from the 4" up to 10" and the wide, short bulb pots so I get 20 at one time, no matter the size. Never can have enough pots.

That's the stuff, never can spell that. SPHAGNUM moss. You dont put any soil inside that next to the stem? and you do use plastic around that? That seemed to by my demise, the plastic. I placed a top watering hole and a smaller bottom draining hole in my plastic and it didn't work well at all. What would happen if you put a healthy layer of soil inside the moss and leave the moss on the outside, and carefully keep it wet? I love the aquarium idea and will use the ponds. When we vacuum the ponds we siphon the water into the flower beds and wow, does that work well to feed the plants.

We lost a great deal of our clematis this year, and had to cut it back this late summer, a bad, bad time to cut clematis!! Even though we have enough to cover the city, I wanted to try and layer it. Clematis cuttings do not work for me at all.

Hmmm, I've never seen pots at the favorite dollar stores. Nope... I don't 'need' anymore.

Clematis - I kind of gave up on cuttings myself. 2 years ago in spring when I cut them back I filled a 64 plug tray with a piece of stem sunk into the plug up to a node. With the cover over it, the buds went ahead and swelled and I even had new growth. Took it into the spring swap for show-n-tell and there was no lack of offers to take them off my hands. I didn't get a single root! This spring/summer I found out how rediculously easy they are to layer!!

Air Layering - No soil. The sphagnum moss is almost magical in it's properties and ability to stimulate root growth. You know it's a secret rejuvenator for the Bonsai group. If they have an ailing specimen or rescue one, they'll take it out of the pot, cut off damaged or dead roots and wrap the rootball in sphagnum for awhile. It doesn't take long before the good healthy white roots materialize. Google it for some more background.

Maybe you had it in too loose? The holes top and bottom would've made it difficult to keep the humidity in there. Yeah, it'll get warm and juicy but the moss itself will shade the stem. I'll bet you just didn't have enough wet moss wrapped around the stem. Even damp, the moss is not as heavy as soil would be, so it's alot easier to tie and have it stay in place. Get the bubble wrap with the little bubbles like wrapping dishware for moving or something and have the bubbles on the insise.

You've got ponds? The watering can(s) would be on a post right beside the one with the biggest or most fish. Every time you water container plants, dip it out of your ponds and you'll be fertilizing everytime. At least do this with your houseplants and watch what happens

We are at about 400 pots, and still growing here. I love our dollar stores! We have a few ponds, lol, and have been watering everything from them for about six years now. Works wonders. I didn't have any of the moss at all on the last try, just soil and plastic. I have some moss and dirt ones going right now, but will try the moss, no dirt and bubble wrap and see what happens, thanks!

I'm a little late joining this topic, but I've been reading everything to try to understand how to collect seeds from my butterfly bush. I still don't get it.

Here's a picture of a drying flower stalk. Are the seeds the brown, twiggy things that are sticking out from where the flowers were?Or, are these pods that have already burst? At what stage do the pods get collected and what do they look like?

Hi Lily! Say hello to SJ for me? I think we might all be semi-beginners here with BB's. I picked my dead blossoms, looking very much like yours, but when they were completely brown. I THINK I spot green bases on yours? I held a bucket under them as I clipped to catch everything. I left them in the bucket for a month or so, fluffing them up and turning them over every few days or when I thought about it, so they would not compact and mold. After they were completely, undoubtedly dry I bagged them in ziplocks and popped them in the frig. In spring, I crumbled them into dirt and got over a dozen babies, so I did something right.

This is the thread I was looking for yesterday!!
The seeds are very fine. Kind of reminds me of a baby's eyelashes with a tiny black dot at the end.
When I see a seed head is actually ripening and the pods are starting to split I hold a card or paper under it and tap. You don't want wind cause they'll be gonnnnnnneee...
Shots:
seed head
seeds from tapping
close up of the seeds... kind of
~---edit~~~
rats! I tried to get cute and put all three in the same note

This message was edited Nov 22, 2004 4:39 PM

seed head with ripe pods splitting at the ends

after tapping seed head over a white card