Not only have I never seen Buddleia reseeding around waste places/roadsides in this area, I can't even get it to survive in my garden, so I don't see invasiveness as an issue locally. I am highly dubious about the proposition that non-native plants supply no nourishment to native insect/animal species. Clearly chickadees and lots of other birds/animals have adapted to using these plants. There was an article in the Sunday New York Times last week from a garden writer emphasizing this (and recommending that people plant a wide variety of native and non-native plants to nourish the local wildlife)*. *this writer's recommendations probably should be taken with a grain of salt, seeing as how his article was primarily about gardening with climate change (he seems to think that a single colder than normal winter is good evidence of climate change, which actually is documented not by single seasonal variation but changes occurring over many years). Here is a link that might be useful: gardening for climate change This post was edited by eric_oh on Sat, May 10, 14 at 11:14

Token said, "If you get a frost, they won't finish.", in regards to Buddleia seeds/pods. A frost will not hurt the seeds in terms of them maturing. The frost will take the leaves but the seeds will continue to develope. I collect mine sometimes as late as January. There are times when I've gone out to check the seed pods in late November and they are STILL undone. ARGH!! My pods are just forming at this point in time. The Buddleias here only start flowering in late August so every year, in the 'dead' of winter, I collect the seeds and trade away. I know the seeds are viable by the multitudes of seedlings I get the following year. :O)

Well, this is sort of timely. I have been reading a lot about nectar. First, let me say that I have not read any study that says that butterfly bush makes butterflies crazy. But there is more to nectar than meets the eye (I find this to be true of most stuff concerning butterflies). First of all nectar can have different types of sugars, water content, and additional components (it is not just sugar water). To start with most nectar is a combination of three sugars, sucrose, glucose, and fructose in ratios. Butterflies seem to prefer high sucrose ratios and this is what Buddleia has, as do other plants. However, nectar is not just sugar. In addition, it can have amino acids and other allelochemicals. Amino acids can be very important to butterflies. For females that did not get enough nitrogen while larva, they will seek out nectar with additional amino acids to make up this deficiency. One interesting experiment would be to watch your butterfly bush and see if predominantly males or females nectar on it. I have not read if Buddleia has amino acids in the nectar or not. Females will do this till their need is met. In addition, some plants will put noxious chemicals in their nectar to ward off nectar robbers and attract the pollinators it wants. Joe pye weed nectar contains pyrrolizadine alkaloids (PAHs), which are known toxins that both tiger moths and Monarchs use for pheromone production and toxicity. These Leps have adapted to using PAHs. I was interested in Bob's photos showing other butterflies nectaring on Joe Pye weed as it must not affect a lot of butterflies. Or else something else is going on. There are several species of Joe Pye and it may make the difference. Some species of plants have very bitter nectar for use by birds as they don't taste bitter. Another interesting factor is the attractant chemicals that flowers put out to attract pollinators. Many of our native plants put out chemical odors that are way diffent than flowers from Europe and elsewhere in the world. This indicates a separation of our species vs. old world pollinators. I have not read more on this but would be interested to see further study as to whether this makes a difference to butterflies. Clearly, buddleia does have attractants to new world leps. One concern is that when pollinators have a plant that allows for easy nectar, that they don't do the heavy lifting in pollination. In other words, they don't work multiple plants and increase pollination. I suspect this is the case for Buddleia, but I have a hard time believing that the fate of pollination rests on tiger swallowtails. Most important though is that the butterfly has to be able to reach the nectar. This is through a combination of landing ability (based on flower shape) and corolla length (the flower tube). One of the interesting things about butterfly bush is that smaller butterflies probably cannot reach the nectar. The tube length is longer in butterfly bush than in composite flowers (Asteracea). I have not taken the time recently to observe, but would like to know if small butterflies, such as hairstreaks, skippers, blues, etc., can even use butterfly bush. If we are putting in flowers for butterflies, we should put in plants that they can all use or a variety anyway. I guess the lesson is not to rely on any one species to attract butterflies. They need a diversity of plants. This study discusses the nectar content of Buddleia and the prefered varieties. http://www.clemson.edu/cafls/departments/horticulture/research/ornamental/landscape/pdf/butterfly_visitation.pdf Sorry for the book. Nothing in the Lep world is as simple as it seems. Cheers, Elisabeth

Acephate is Orthene, AFAIK still available. It is a mild systemic (lasting about 2 weeks-ish) because of the foliar application - working in systemics to the soil usu ensures they persist longer. I'd recommend against it as dani wrote above. I had a wonderful 'Pink Delight' in Sacramento that would crawl with predators and I never sprayed-injected-worked in any insecticide for fear of killing the predators or the other critters that I enjoyed. (Aside, I used to go out at night to the shrub with my red-light flashlight to enjoy the colors reflected in various species of moths' eyes [/geeky]) Here in Aurora, we have a solitary Buddleia that gets loads of ambush bugs, which delight the kindergartner. Any defoliation from critters is too bad for the plant, as the attractant for predators outweighs any defoliation. We don't get flea beetles on that shrub, altho I have a problem with them in the veggie garden. Dan