I'm sure it won't hurt, just build up your trough with the mulch and don't lay it too thick on the inside so water can easily get through it, maybe an inch or so? Mom always did that with hers, keeps the roots cool and wet. You can also find some type of ground cover to plant around it next season, or whenever you are done moving it around lol. Something that can handle being trimmed if necessary is and fast growing, but won't take all the food from the rose. There's this stuff here in Indiana that's got little yellow flowers and creeps over the ground, grows like a weed just about anywhere and can take over if you're not careful, really resistant to both wet and dry weather and can handle hard freezes and blaring sun with no worries; we put it in all of our empty-looking flower beds that have big, tall plants but it chokes out smaller things like hyacinth (don't know if I spelled that right... oops). After a quick Google search I found the name of it, Czar's Gold Sedum. The link is a place to buy it and the only one I could find that looks like ours, not sure if it will grow well where you're at but hopefully it will help give you a place to start looking if you want to give something like it a try. :3 Here is a link that might be useful: Czars Gold Sedum, takes a bit of scrolling down to find it This post was edited by SasorisPuppet on Fri, Apr 11, 14 at 11:15

Yes, buddleias are supposed to be pruned back, hard, since they bloom on new wood. I prune my now 13 yo one back as hard as I can, but can't get lower than 3' because of the huge trunk. My others I generally prune back to a 1.5'-2'.

Butterfly bushes should only be "drastically" pruned to within about 12" from the base, in early spring. You can judiciously prune errant branches, etc., throughout the growing season. Cuttings are easy to grow. Choose reasonably new (not the woody ones) stems about 6" or larger, removing the foliage except for the tip leaves. Rooting hormone helps, but is not necessary. Put the cutting in potting soil, sand, whatever, they are not picky. Enclose the cutting in a plastic bag. I test the cutting by tugging on the top of the stems, and if the stem seems resistant, it has roots. Harden them off from the baggy by opening the top for a few days, and then removing it entirely. So easy to do! Heavy fall or winter pruning is not advised - mine died one year after pruning it heavily in late fall. Now I leave all the dead stems over winter and prune it in early spring. Someone said that they successfully pruned theirs in late fall, but I wouldn't risk it. As Bob says, there are many new dwarf hybrids out there now. Another pretty one is Silver Anniversary. MissSherry has a beautiful Ellen's Blue that I covet...lol. I planted a Nanho purple one time, though, which is a dwarf, and it did not attract any butterflies at all in my garden. Others have said it has for them. The old standbys like Pink Delight, White Profusion, and the yellow flowering buddleias are good nectar sources for sure. Susan

I personally would let them get to their natural/genetically predisposed size. Eventually they will slow down. Then you'd only have to prune out an unhealthy or a wayward branch. Here's what I mean. If you bought a shrub that the mature height is 6' but you want it to be 4' tall. You prune it this year and it will spend all year trying to 'grow up' to it's mature size, 6'. Then next year you prune and its again tries to 'grow up'. The following year you prune, it grows. You will have to prune each and every year to maintain at 4' all the while it is trying its best to reach the size it is suppose to be. I just think it could put all that energy into making pretty flowers instead of trying to grow to mature size and I could be sipping lemonade instead of pruning it. If you buy a shrub that the mature height is 4', then its growing should slow down as it nears 4'. You might have to prune occasionally, but it would be ALOT less work, and you'll enjoy it much more. So what do you do if that location needs something only 4' tall and you've got a gargantuan gardenia? Move it! and put the right size shrub for that spot. That's what I had to do to lots of stuff when we moved here. Remember to remove the top growth a proportionate amount as to the root ball you dig. And keep it watered. I think the reason most gardens fail is that they require more maintenance than people have time for. Good luck and happy gardening.