Empire Blue Buddleja Plants

Buddleja davidii 'Empire Blue': Butterfly Bush, 3-Litre Pots

This classic buddleja is ever popular thanks to its tidy habit, profuse intensely blue/violet flowers with an orange eye and a high yield of nectar for friendly insects. The flowers are smaller than newer varieties, but the scent is as good or better.

Browse our other Buddleja, or all our garden shrubs.

Features:

• Violet-blue flowers
• Blooms July-September
• Strong, sweet scent
• RHS Plants for Pollinators
• To 4m x 4m

Growing 'Empire Blue' Buddleja Bushes

Buddleia is tough and will thrive in any sunny position in moist and well-drained soil. In shadier locations they still grow well, but you won't get so many flowers.

They benefit from being cut back hard in early spring during the first half of March, and prompt deadheading prolongs their season.

In Your Garden Design

Buddleja is excellent for bringing some late-summer colour to the table; plant as a backdrop to bronzes, rubies and golds, such as dahlias, rudbeckias, sedums and heleniums. Delphinium Guardian Blue would also look fantastic. Asters and Salvias are good companion plants too.

Did You Know?

Bred in 1941 by Good & Reese nursery in Ohio, USA, as one of the first blue cultivars, it is a former RHS Award of Garden Merit holder. It is less popular this century than last due to all the new varieties, but in its day it was probably the most common purple-blue buddleia in the world. We salute you 'Empire Blue' for standing your ground against the new 'buds' in town.