How to care for buddleya in the fall and prepare for winter: pruning and sheltering

Buddleya is one of the most unpretentious shrubs that blooms from July to November, i.e. almost all summer and autumn. Covering itself with long and lush buds, it emits a divine honey scent that attracts butterflies to the garden.

However, despite all the unpretentiousness of the "autumn lilac", every year at the end of the growing season, she needs some preparation for winter, namely pruning and shelter. Read on to learn how to care for and properly prepare a buddley for winter.

By far the most popular variety is David's buddley (also called volatile). The point is that it is most suitable for growing in the conditions of the Central strip (Moscow region) and in other regions of Russia. However, tThere are also other types of buddleia: spherical, alternate-leaved, white-flowered, snowy and Japanese.

How to care for buddleya in the fall to properly prepare for winter

Here are the activities that are usually included in the fall care and preparation for the winter:

• Autumn feeding.

Before and during flowering, the bush will need potash and phosphoric fertilizers (for example, you can use potassium sulfate and superphosphate or wood ash and bone meal).

Also, in the fall, before wintering, you can mulch the bushes with compost or humus. In this case, you don't even have to do the spring nitrogen feeding shrub.

• Pruning (faded inflorescences and shoots for the winter).

Advice! During the fall pruning, you can cut your own cuttings for further propagation of buddley.

About, how to grow buddley from a cutting, read more in in the material on planting and growing this flowering shrub.

• Moisture-charging irrigation.
• Shelter for the winter and mulching.

Pruning buddlea in summer and fall: when and how to prune

Summer pruning of peduncles

If you promptly remove old faded inflorescences, then due to this, other lateral flower buds will immediately begin to wake up in the axils and the buddley bush will bloom profusely without ceasing, without losing its decorative effect for a day.

Video: pruning buddleya of David during flowering

Autumn pruning for the winter

Note! In the southern regions, there is no need to prune the buddley for the winter, because it winters well without any shelter.

Pruning buddley for the winter is very simple: you just need to cut all the branches almost to the ground (they also say "to the stump"), i.e. 5-10 cm (sometimes it is advised to leave 15-20 cm), i.e. remove all vegetative part.

By the way! During autumn pruning, you can cut yourself into cuttings for further propagation of buddley.

Video: how to crop buddley for the winter

However! Since the entire above-ground part (shoots) of the shrub completely freezes in winter, and with the arrival of heat (spring), the plant forms a new growth from scratch, which by summer increases its green mass (and then blooms on the shoots of the current year), then you, in principle , you may not prune in the fall, but do it in the spring.

Shelter buddleya for the winter: how to keep the bush until spring

Buddleya is a slightly frost-resistant plant, so she definitely needs shelter for the winter in most regions (except for the southern ones).

Even the most frost-resistant varieties can withstand frosts up to -20 degrees.

The shelter is made only after a stable minus temperature (-1 ..- 3) is established.

You can cover the buddley for the winter in one of the following ways:

• Slightly spud the bush with humus or peat, and also mulch with leaves (in this case the bushes can not be cut for the winter, but transferred to the spring).
• Do everything the same, and install a wooden frame on top and cover with twigs (autumn pruning is a must!).

• Or cover with a wooden or cardboard box, setting arcs onto which to pull the spunbond. Yet again need pruning for the winter!

By the way! And if you live in a region where permanent snowy winters (for example, in Krasnoyarsk), then buddley, sheltered thick layer of snow (0.5-1 meters), it will perfectly be able to winter and without any other shelter (but with cropping!).

In very cold regions it is better not to leave buddleya to winter in the open field, but to transplant it into a pot and take it to the basement or cellar for the winter.

Especially it concerns young 1-2 year old bushes, which must be dug out at the end of autumn together with an earthen lump, placed in a container and transferred to the basement or cellar for the winter.

However, buddlea is good because it is able to quickly recover after winter and start blooming on the shoots of this year. But in case you are her incorrectly or not at all (hoping for a snowy winter, but it will not be), buddleya (especially a young one) can freeze completely (its roots will perish).

Interesting! It is worth noting that the buddlea bushes, grown from seed, at times better winter than seedlings bought in the store.

Thus, now you know what to do with your "autumn lilac" so that it winters well and becomes a "butterfly magnet" again the next year.

Video: Buddleya David - preparing for winter