When I was a child, I traveled to England in the summers to stay with my maternal grandparents in this tiny village called Nuthampstead in Hertfordshire. I loved summers at "Bull's Farm"- an old non-working farm- where my grandparents lived. They had this big wonderfully quirky house, old pig stys (where my brother and cousins and I spent endless hours playing imaginative games), a big back garden with enormous rhubarb plants and the most perfect flat lawn. There was also a big courtyard with a big barn where my grandfather had his workshop and the whole place had this musty smell that would trigger many memories if I were to smell it again. In the summertime, the entire front of the house had buddleia or butterfly bushes all along it and the butterflies flocked to them in droves. I'll never forget watching them through the open windows or smelling the heavy blooms.
As the anniversary of my grandmother's death comes around again, it only seems appropriate to do a post on buddleia in memory of her. Her anniversary was actually this past Friday, Earth Day so I'm a little late but she's always on my mind.
I promised myself that once I had my own garden, I'd be planting buddleia in it. When we moved to Ireland, they were some of the first plants I added to my slowly evolving garden.
In my back border is a white buddleia which has grown quickly on the south facing wall to an incredible height and the enormous blossoms it brings each year always amaze me.
My neighbours across the street have one of these unusual global buddleias that come in this amazing orange blooms and a rare shape.
I loved this idea of planting a buddleia in a pot. In America, you actually had to plant buddleia in your garden- here in Ireland they grow wild along the roadsides which I love- you see these huge bushes that have never been pruned but they give forth loads of wonderful blooms each year.
Do you like buddleia? Or because you live in Ireland do you almost consider it like a weed?
