Depending on the winter, you may have success having it return or maybe not. I'm a zone 6 but we had a zone 5 winter last year. I lost a 6 year old Royal Red, large, healthy, and well established Butterfly Bush. My others are all finally in bloom, after some dying completely to the ground, which is unusual here.

I would make sure you mulch your plant and do not trim back the plant until spring. That is probably the most you can do to help it make it through the winter and return next spring. Oh, and keep your fingers crossed - it can't hurt!

Linda

Hi Linda thanks for your response. Sorry to hear you lost some last winter.

When you say mulch, do you mean more than having the garden area mulched just like a normal garden? I have a layer of mulch around that whole area. Or do you mean piling it up so it's thicker?

Thanks again! Fingers crossed it makes it.

it will depend on where you are in z5 ... its a vast area ...

and your little micro climate ..

in one suburban z5 garden.. i got them to live a few years .. before the bad winter came ...

in farmland sand z5 ... they did not come back in year two ... whether it was blistering winter winds.. or the sand.. or drought.. i dont know ...

ken

I'm in Michigan zone 5.

I have 4 BB's and they all survived this past BRUTAL winter.

I think as long as you plant it in well draining soil it will be just fine. Also note that they are slow to sprout new growth in the spring. When you see this you can then cut it back to about 6-8 inches. I do this every year with great success! They bloom all summer, as long as you keep it deadheaded. I just love mine :)

I'm just south of Des Moines Iowa. We usually get a fair amount of snow.

lil - so you don't do anything to protect them? I read that they can come back as late as June so I will try hard to be patient and not assume they are dead. :) Hope I have as much success as you. The soil should be in an area that drains well!

My beds are all mulched, but I don't use "extra" anywhere.

Yes well draining I believe is key. I lost one at my old house that was in a low area that took much longer to dry out. I'm sure that's what killed it.

Perfect - thanks! Mine is mulched and should have good drainage so hopefully it survives!

Thanks everyone!

Mine overwintered with no problems, no winter protection. The ground was mulched well with leaves, and I did not prune back until spring. Keep in mind this is a dieback shrub -- it may appear "dead" because the branches die back in this zone, but will sprout from the base/sprouts on branches near the base and grow very quickly into full-size plants.

While all my butterfly bushes were grown from seed via winter sowing, I planted them in several beds around the garden, both full- and part-sun. The happiest of them is growing, to my surprise, in a part shade bed on the north side of my house. Go figure.

The soil is consistently well-drained in my garden so excess moisture has never been a concern. Granted, they were very late showing new growth this past spring due to the extreme winter but all came back and are currently blooming. Beyond using corrugated cardboard topped with pine bark nuggets to suppress weeds around them in my garden beds, none of mine have ever been mulched.

As long as Mother Nature is driving the train, there's not a lot you can do to help your BB survive whatever winter throws at it. Established perennials growing in healthy soil with well-developed root systems should survive pretty much whatever comes at them in terms of weather. Cross your fingers and be glad your plant had several months to develop a healthy root system.

As long as Mother Nature is driving the train, there's not a lot you can do to help your BB survive

Well I am going to intervene on Mother Nature.

I planted 2 mini BB in late mid July. (They are planted side by side).

An experiment:

Late this Fall I will put this 'tent' over one of them.

Over the other I will use lots of mulch.

May the best protection win!

Here is a link that might be useful: Framed shrub cover

Protection like that tent will probably help. Another thing you can consider is planting a more vulnerable specimen in a protected location, or warmer microclimate, such as against the house foundation.

Also I think some Buddleia cultivars are hardier than others. My Buddleia 'Black Knight' is about 9 years old and has proven to be quite hardy. It's out in a very exposed location subject to harsh winter winds that come whipping across the farmland across the street. It suffered more dieback than usual this past winter, but now it's 6 feet tall and bushy.

It really depends on the cultivars and the microclimate as mentioned above.

I live in Chicago about 6 miles from the lake, where the temperature has not dropped below -10 in 20 years. I had B. lochinch for about 5 years then it died.

My second no name Buddleia has returned 3 years now and another 4 year old one that I grew from a tiny seedling is doing well whereas my neighbor's Black Knight that was 8 or 9 years old died this past winter.

I wonder if Buddleia is not a long lived plant by nature.

This post was edited by pitimpinai on Fri, Aug 22, 14 at 9:56

In our neck of the woods, only anecdotally speaking, nursery people lost over 75% of their BB stock due to this most recent frigid winter (and that is with significant protective snow cover).

A BB, realistically hardy to say a...zone 4...might be one of the holy grails of plant propagation ;).

I, too, am in the group of those with a healthy, 8-year-old Black Knight that succumbed to the Polar Vortex. My brand new Dubonnet made it through. Dubonnet had more mulch; don't know if that was a factor.

Oh those tents are neat!!!

Mine is planted in a garden bed next to our house so hopefully the house will protect it some.

Thank you all for your responses. Fingers crossed it makes it. it's so beautiful!

I have a 'Blue Chip' buddleia. It's a dwarf and stays around 4' by 3'. It died back to the ground here in zone 7 last winter, and we never officially got below zero. It resprouted, and looks pretty much the same as it did last summer at this point.

I don't know these plants that well but the one I have seems resilient and bloomed on the new resprouted wood.

All of my butterfly bushes are near the house with the exception of the Royal Red that did not make it. Dubonnet is not right next to the house but is still somewhat protected. Pink Delight, Black Knight, and a NOID lavender are right next to the house. Perhaps the cold winter wind was just too much for Royal Red. It was mulched in too, as we mulch all of our plants.

Linda

The only BB that survived this past winter here was a dwarf white one (not sure of the name - don't seem to have a tag for it....) The big one I lost was over 10 years old and another one was 9 years old, so I'm beginning to think like pitimpinal - i.e. that 8-10 years may be a normal lifespan for BB. I wonder about lifespan of clematis too - I've lost a couple in the past few years - including Sweet Autumn this past winter. They were all ones I planted in our first couple of years here so they were 12-14 years old. The longer you garden in one place, the more likely you are to run up against the lifespan limit of something - but I'm more inclined always to point the blame at weather, or my poor maintenance or siting of something, rather than to think it was just old and likely to die soon anyway. Now that the thought is in my mind though, I'm starting to look around to speculate on what might be old enough to die off soon. I suspect we might well have another hard winter coming up that would finish off anything weakened from either age or last winter's damage. The garden is getting full now and I wouldn't mind a few empty spots to fill up with something new! :-)

Only one of my butterfly bushes is growing up close to the house; the rest are growing in various island beds with one close to the unheated garage foundation. I grew all of them from seed via winter sowing in 2009 and planted out the seedlings sometime in 2010 so none of mine have reached what could possibly be the benchmark age of 8-10 years.

Less than a mile from me, however, there's a house where a really huge old butterfly bush is growing that is the same size as my own mature crabapple tree. I'm guessing that one is older than 8-10 years. You'd need a chainsaw to cut that one back in the spring.

Like woodyoak, my garden beds are beginning to mature and no longer look half empty. My frenzied efforts to winter sow back in 2009 & 2010 (um, 500 milk jugs) have given me hundreds of free perennials to fill the formerly empty spaces. I've cut back this year and only sowed 16 milk jugs. My Jacob's ladder didn't survive last winter and I sure missed it when spring rolled around this year.

i think Terrene is right on the money. Another trick that can help is placing a large rock next to a ~hardy plant- to absorb the sun and create a slight bit more warmth.

(I actually know a nurserywoman in my area who planted her passion flower vine by her dryer vent, and it lives on!)

UPDATE:

I planted side by side 2 pink Micro Chip BB this past mid July. They had lots of time to establish and were healthy all season.

I know it might not look great but I 'tented' *one* of them and will just leaf mulch the other. Come spring we shall see who wins.

UPDATE:

Well to my surprise the BB not tented survived the winter and is flourishing whereas the tented one never showed signs of life this spring. Now what I can't recall is whether I mulched each equally and then applied the tent :(.

Michaela, just wondering if your bicolor butterfly bush survived this past winter?

I can't get a fix on why some butterfly bushes live through the winter and some don't. We planted a small Tutti Fruitti Butterfly Bush in the fall, later than I would have liked. It came from Florida in a trade. It was planted in the exact same spot where I had lost the large Royal Red mentioned above. Would you believe it has returned, looking very healthy, even after the awful cold, long winter we had here. Go figure.

Linda

Karen, it did! It took a while to show signs of life, just sprung back in the last week or so. It's been in the upper 80s this week and it's finally taking off.

Linlily, I think it's a combination of genetics (some are hardier than others) and protection. I find that when we get early snow before it's really cold, marginal plants here, including butterfly bush, seem to do better than if it gets really cold before snow. A lot of my plants rely on having snow for winter survival. I don't usually mulch specifically for protection in winter, but all my beds have some mulch, and I leave stems on many plants to hold leaves for self-mulching.

It did bloom for me. I planted it late so I got only a few blooms. Most of the blooms I had were lavender rather than the orange color that was advertised. This probably was because the weather was cool by the time it started blooming.

Here are the two photos I have of mine from last year. I was quite impressed with how much it grew from a dormant little ball of dried roots I received from Gurneys. It was a little more purple than the photos let on but I loved the blooms. I'm looking forward to seeing them again.

This past Fall I covered our 2 micro BB with fir boughs (instead of leaf mulch).

Love the photos! In Colorado (Z5), we often cut butterfly bushes to the ground around February in anticipation of new growth. I've never lost a butterfly bush to harsh winters, and I don't baby them. If they aren't tough enough to make it through the winter, I'll just plant something else. Make sure your shrub isn't too close to the house.