Butterfly Candy Buddleia: New Compact Varieties

Irresistible to Butterflies (and Hummingbirds and bees too!) The newest garden and pollinator treat has hit the markets and will bring a vibrant splash of color to your garden this year!

Nature Hills Nursery proudly introduces the new Butterfly Candy® line of Buddleia bushes!

Sweet Butterfly Desserts - Buddleia Butterfly Candy®!
Check Out The Butterfly Candy® Line Of Sweet Delights
Butterfly Candy® Buddleia Care & Maintenance
Where to Use Your Butterfly Candy® Butterfly Bushes
A Sweet Treat For All!

Sweet Butterfly Desserts - Buddleia Butterfly Candy®!

Featuring five fantastic colors and form wonderful low-growing mounds of dense green foliage! Not only do Butterfly Candy™ Butterfly Bushes grow to a space-saving 2-3 feet in height and width, but they are also wonderfully hardy throughout UDSA planting zones 5 to 10 and rebloom with abandon!

Heat and sun-loving flowering ornamentals, these compact flowering shrubs start blooming in the late spring and don’t stop until fall! Your beneficial insects and vital pollinators will appreciate the nearly constant supply of nectar!

Backed by a rounded mound of lightly-toothed, deep green spear-shaped foliage, these Butterfly Bushes are anything but their airy, open-canopied cousins that grow large and leggy!

Holding their blooms upright in the air atop their mound of foliage, the gorgeous inflorescences create cone-shaped panicles that taper into lovely points. Packed with hundreds of little, flared trumpet-shaped blooms which open from the bottom up - making them very long-lasting! Plus they are as fragrant as can be!

Attract Butterflies, Bees, and Hummingbirds!
Long-lasting and reblooming
Fragrant!
Great in a Vase or Bouquet
Low-growing and space-saving
Wonderfully dense and compact - Container-sized!
Lightly-toothed, spear-shaped green foliage
Very low-maintenance and easy-to-grow deciduous shrubs!
Heat and sun-loving plants
Hardy USDA growing zones 5 to 10
Versatile in the Landscape

Check Out The Butterfly Candy® Line Of Sweet Delights

Fruity and luscious colors await you and your butterflies! Especially endangered Monarch Butterflies!

Lil' Coconut

Lil' Coconut™

This luscious, creamy white flowering Butterfly Bush, Lil' Coconut™ (Buddleia davidii 'BotEx 003' PP34525) with pale yellow flower bases, these long-lasting flowers are perfect in Moon Gardens and accent any other color in the garden!

Lil Taffy

Lil’ Taffy™

The prolific tapering blossoms on Lil’ Taffy™ (Buddleia davidii ‘BotEx 005’ PP34703) have a darling bubblegum pink that is perfect for pastel gardens. Sweetly fragrant, you’ll have no shortage of blooms for your pollinators and bouquets!

Lil Raspberry

Lil' Raspberry™

Amp up the color spectrum of your landscape with this hot-colored Buddleia! The Lil' Raspberry™ (Buddleia davidii ‘BotEx 006’ PP34500) features magenta to ruby-colored panicles that are fat and fluffy, jam-packed with fragrant florets that catch the eye!

Lil Lavender

Lil' Lavender™

Softer and subtle lavender blooms with a tiny splash of orange throats, Lil' Lavender™ (Buddleia davidii 'BotEx 004' PP34378) is lovely when paired with salmon and coral hues, white blossoms, or adding soft color en mass all summer and fall! Perfectly sized for container gardeners and small-scale landscaping, you’ll love the creamy, light-purple blossoms!

Lil Grape

Lil' Grape™

The bolder sister to Lil’ Lavender, Lil' Grape™ (Buddleia davidii BotEx 001') features deep dark purple panicles that have a bold color impact and are even showier with their shocking violet centers and throats! These two-tone blooms are eye-catching en masse!

Butterfly Candy® Buddleia Care & Maintenance

If you want easy … Butterfly Candy® Butterfly Bushes are the definition of easy!

Just provide a full sun location in your garden, with at least 6 hours a day of direct sunlight. The morning sun is best to dry the leaves of dew.

Plant Buddleia in a location with very well-drained soil that won’t get soggy. Enrich it with lots of organic matter and compost, and keep your plants well-watered their first year in the ground. Then they only appreciate watering during the hottest months of the year and a little more through a dry winter in the hottest of their favored zone 5 to 10 climates. Check out the ‘Finger Test’ method to know when to water!

All plants do best with a 3-4 inch thick layer of arborist mulch to improve the soil, hold in moisture more consistently, and insulate the root systems from heat and chill. Each spring, it's also recommended you apply a balanced, slow-release fertilizer for flowering shrubs, but please avoid getting lawn fertilizer and high-nitrogen fertilizer anywhere near your flowering shrubs!

Pruning Butterfly Candy® Buddleia is easy too! Just snip back your shrub in the very early spring before you see that first flush of new growth to maintain a tidy, rounded shrub that blooms with abandon! It is best to cut back these plants even in areas where they don’t die back during winter, so they produce all fresh new, uniform growth each spring for the best bloom. Comment end Deadhead after flowers fade to encourage repeated waves of reblooming until fall or frost!

Plus, Butterfly Bushes are seldom bothered by deer unless desperate, and they have few pests or disease issues to deal with!

Where to Use Your Butterfly Candy® Butterfly Bushes

The question really is … where can’t you use these shrubs? Any sunny Pollinator or Butterfly Garden is, of course, a no-brainer! But you can turn any garden into a butterfly garden with a few of these compact, low-growing accents! Established gardens and small-scale modern lots can all enjoy these radiant blooming shrubs!

Purple Butterfly Bush

Add vibrant colors from late spring to fall in the Cottage Garden
Bring Pollinators to Perennial gardens by using Butterfly Candy® bushes as a backdrop
Great for Cutting Gardens and bouquets!
Hardy enough for a Rock garden
Turn a walkway or path into a fragrant journey with a row of compact Buddleia
Divide your front yard from the sidewalk with a border of three-season blooming shrubs
Edge garden beds with low-growing flowering plants
A facer shrub rows hide the leggy bare stems of large shrub and evergreen hedges
Perfect for sunny foundations and patios as low border plants
Add groupings of Butterfly Candy® to add pops of color throughout mixed shrub borders
En masse color that lasts and lasts in the sun without requiring much fussing over!
A single specimen in a large pot or urn on your front porch, balcony, or patio garden
Container gardeners can enjoy these thrillers in planters around the pool or fire pit
Plant around seating areas, hammocks, and deck chairs to perfume your get-togethers
The perfect shrub for a Children’s Garden where they can watch butterflies all day!
Mix and match with other Butterfly Candy® or other Butterfly Bushes at Nature Hills!

Add a bee watering station, hummingbird feeder, Butterfly puddling station, and a birdbath or pond, and you’ll have every sort of winged creature around making your landscape their new neighborhood hotspot!

Pink Butterfly Bush

A Sweet Treat For All!

You’ll want to invest in a comfy outdoor reading chair, lawn blanket, or garden bench - plus a butterfly identification book - because once you plant these incredible pollinator garden plants, you will have so many winged visitors stopping by for a visit!

So why not gift yourself, or someone special, the gift that keeps on giving with the Butterfly Candy® line of new Butterfly Bushes today? Reserve yours right now before they’re gone at Nature Hills Nursery!

Happy Planting!

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Butterfly Candy butterfly bush a perennial, and will it come back every year?

Butterfly Candy Buddleia is a deciduous perennial shrub that reliably returns each year in USDA zones 5 through 10. Like most butterfly bushes, it will die back in colder winters but resprout from the roots each spring. In warmer climates it may retain more of its woody structure through winter. Give it a hard cutback in late winter or early spring to encourage the most vigorous growth and the best bloom production come late spring.

How is buddleia different from lilac, and can they be used the same way in the landscape?

Buddleia and lilac are both fragrant, pollinator-friendly shrubs, but they differ significantly in bloom time, size, and climate adaptability. Lilacs are cool-climate shrubs that bloom once in spring and thrive in zones 3-7, while buddleia blooms from late spring through fall and performs well across the broader range of zones 5-10. Compact varieties like the Butterfly Candy series stay just 2-3 feet tall, making them far more versatile in smaller spaces than most lilacs. If you love the fragrance and cottage-garden charm of lilacs but need a longer season of color or live in a warmer climate, plant buddleia as a complementary or alternative choice in sunny borders and pollinator gardens.

How many hours of sun does Butterfly Candy need each day to bloom its best?

Butterfly Candy Buddleia thrives in full sun and performs best with at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight per day. These heat-loving shrubs are hardy in USDA zones 5 to 10 and begin blooming in late spring, continuing non-stop through fall when given adequate sun exposure. For the most abundant blooms and to keep pollinators coming all season long, choose the sunniest spot in your yard and avoid planting in areas with significant shade.

What type of soil does Butterfly Candy grow best in, and can it handle clay or poorly drained spots?

Butterfly Candy Buddleia thrives in well-drained soil with average to moderate fertility, and it does not perform well in clay or poorly drained areas where standing water can cause root rot. Like most Buddleia, these compact shrubs prefer a slightly acidic to neutral pH and good drainage above all else. If your soil is heavy or compacted, amend it generously with compost and coarse grit before planting, or consider growing Butterfly Candy in a raised bed or container where you can fully control drainage conditions.

Can Butterfly Candy be grown in a container, and what pot size should I use?

Butterfly Candy Buddleia is an excellent choice for container growing, as its compact 2-3 foot mounded habit was practically designed for pots and patio displays. Choose a container at least 12-18 inches in diameter with good drainage holes to give the roots adequate room to establish. Use a quality well-draining potting mix, site your container in full sun, and water consistently since pots dry out faster than garden beds. Feed with a balanced slow-release fertilizer in spring to keep blooms coming from late spring all the way through fall.

When is the best time of year to plant Butterfly Candy in the ground?

The best time to plant Butterfly Candy Buddleia in the ground is in spring after the last frost has passed, or in early fall at least 6 weeks before the first expected frost, giving the roots time to establish before extreme temperatures arrive. These shrubs are hardy in USDA zones 5 through 10, so planting windows will vary by region. In warmer zones, fall planting is often ideal, while gardeners in zone 5 or 6 will have the best success with a spring planting. Water thoroughly at planting and keep the root zone consistently moist through the first growing season to ensure strong establishment.

How far apart should I space Butterfly Candy plants in a garden border or mixed shrub bed?

Butterfly Candy Buddleia grows into a compact mound reaching 2 to 3 feet in both height and width, so spacing plants 3 feet apart center to center works well in most border and mixed shrub plantings. This spacing allows each plant enough room to fill out fully without crowding while still creating a lush, continuous display when in bloom. For a mass planting or low hedge effect, you can tighten spacing slightly to 2.5 feet to encourage a fuller look as the shrubs mature. Measure and mark your spacing before planting, and keep in mind that these dense, mounding plants will naturally knit together over time to create a tidy, pollinator-friendly border.

How tall and wide does Butterfly Candy get at maturity, and how quickly will it reach full size?

Butterfly Candy Buddleia grows into a tidy, rounded mound reaching 2 to 3 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide at maturity, making it an excellent choice for smaller spaces and container gardening. These compact shrubs are hardy in USDA zones 5 through 10 and typically reach their mature size within a couple of growing seasons under ideal conditions. Plant yours in a full sun location with well-drained soil to encourage the fastest, most vigorous growth and the best rebloom performance from late spring through fall.

When and how hard should I prune Butterfly Candy to keep it healthy and blooming?

Prune Butterfly Candy Buddleia hard in early spring, cutting plants back to about 12 inches from the ground just as new growth begins to emerge. This aggressive pruning encourages vigorous new growth, which is where the blooms are produced, keeping your plant dense, compact, and floriferous throughout the season. In warmer zones like 9 and 10, you can prune in late winter, while gardeners in zones 5 and 6 should wait until frost risk has passed and growth is clearly underway. Deadhead spent flower panicles throughout summer to encourage continuous reblooming right up until fall.

Should I deadhead spent blooms on Butterfly Candy, and will it encourage more flowers?

Yes, deadheading spent blooms on Butterfly Candy Buddleia will encourage faster reblooming and keep the plant looking tidy throughout the season. Simply snip off the faded panicles just above the next set of leaves or buds as soon as the flowers begin to fade. Because these compact shrubs naturally rebloom with abandon from late spring through fall in zones 5 to 10, regular deadheading ensures a nearly continuous supply of fresh nectar-rich flowers for butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. Make it a habit to do a quick pass through your plants every week or two during the blooming season to maximize flower production.

The Newest Butterfly Bushes on the Block - Bufferfly Candy®!