12 Butterfly Bush Varieties

Butterfly bushes are lovely, fast-growing shrubs that bloom for months and just as the name implies, attract butterflies, bees and birds to your garden. Here are some great varieties for you to plant.

March 16, 2021

By: Leanne Potts

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'Nanho Purple' Butterfly Bush

Buddleia are sometimes called "summer lilacs," and one look at the blooms of Nanho Purple tells you why. These deep purple wands of blooms look and smell a lot like lilacs. Nanho Purple is a compact variety that grows 3 to 5 feet tall and about that wide. So you can use it in your yard or garden without having it take over. Best of all, it’s seedless and non-invasive, so it will attract butterflies without taking over the neighborhood.

Learn More: How to Care for Butterfly Bush

'Prince Charming' Butterfly Bush

If you want bright blooms, 'Prince Charming' is the buddleia for you. It produces 10-inch long spikes of flowers in sizzling raspberry pink that hummingbirds adore. Those big, bright flowers grow on a compact shrub that gets 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide, so its short stature will fit into smaller gardens where a bigger buddleia would be overpowering.

'Queen of Hearts' Butterfly Bush

Buddleia shrubs can grow to a gargantuan 12 feet tall — great if you live at a botanical garden, but not great for a normal residential garden. 'Queen of Hearts' is a compact type that gets just 3 to 4 feet tall. It forms a full, rounded mound that's a bit wider than it is tall, and is covered with 9-inch long wands of vibrant magenta flowers all summer. Planting butterfly bush is a good way to add a splash of color to your garden and attract winged creatures.

'Pugster Pink' Butterfly Bush

If a monster butterfly bush isn’t your cup of garden tea, this is the variety for you. 'Pugster' is a dwarf variety that grows just 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide, but it has full-sized flowers. Tiny bush, big blooms. What's not to love? This means you can put it in a container of in the middle of a border. It's a continuous bloomer, so you won’t even have to deadhead to get flowers all season. 'Pugster' is cold-hardier than many other varieties of buddleia, able to survive to Zone 5.

'Miss Molly' Butterfly Bush

The oldest varieties of butterfly bushes can be invasive, taking over you garden and the surrounding landscape. There are newer cultivars that are seedless and non-invasive, like 'Miss Molly.' It produces sterile blooms that are sangria-pink, as close to red as a butterfly bush gets. 'Miss Molly' is a compact variety, too, reaching just 3 feet tall, so you can work it into a smaller garden instead of relegating to the back of the border.

'Glass Slippers' Butterfly Bush

This is a large buddleia, growing 6 to 12 feet tall and spreading up to 15 feet wide. Its silvery-green foliage and pale blue flowers add a splash of cool hues to your landscape. You can keep it small by pruning it back every fall, or if you have room, let it turn into the sort of giant, blooming shrub that gives big old estate gardens their wonderful feeling of ancient growth.

'Buzz Ivory' Butterfly Bush

Another small buddleia, 'Buzz Ivory' produces white spikes of flowers on a mounding shrub that's 3 to 4 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide. It’s a good foundation plant, middle-of-the-border plant, or can be used as a small, natural shaped hedge. Like other butterfly bushes, it's deer-resistant and will bloom all season long.

'Wisteria Lane' Butterfly Bush

This trailing buddleia gets its name from the blooms' resemblance to wisteria. Its soft lilac-purple flowers hang in waterfall-like sprays and have a honey-sweet fragrance. This is a short, wide shrub, growing 2 feet tall and 4 feet wide, so it's a good middle-of-the-border plant or hedge. 'Wisteria Lane' is a late bloomer, with the first flowers appearing in late summer when your other flowers are gone, so it will keep the color coming until the first frost.

'Black Knight' Butterfly Bush

This big shrub produces deep purple flowers, the darkest hue of all the buddleia family. 'Black Knight' grows to 10 feet tall and 5 feet wide, so give it a lot of room or plan on pruning it each fall after it blooms. This cultivar is a vigorous self-seeder, which means it can spread quickly and aggressively. To keep it under control, deadhead the flowers before they set seed. This will also keep it blooming all season.

'CranRazz' Butterfly Bush

A medium-sized buddleia, 'CranRazz' produces 8-inch wands of cranberry red blooms on a 6-foot tall plant with silvery foliage. It's an early blooming buddleia, with flowers appearing in the spring. Introduced in 2014, it's one the newer varieties, and a good back-of-the-border plant.

'Lilac Cascade' Butterfly Bush

This is a short, wide variety that grows 5 feet tall and spreads to 6 feet wide. Since it doesn’t tower, you can see the bees, hummingbirds and butterflies that swarm to eat the nectar from its plum-lavender plumes of flowers. 'Lilac Cascade' blooms a little later than other buddleia varieties, so you'll have flowers through the fall. Its flowers don't produce seed, so it's not invasive.

'Flutterby Pink' Butterfly Bush

This dwarf shrub gets just 2 feet tall and about 2.5 feet wide, so it won’t overwhelm a small garden. You can put it in a border or even grow it in a container. It produces pink blooms continuously from summer until frost. It rarely re-seeds, so it's non-invasive. Because as much as we love butterfly bushes, we don’t want them getting greedy with the space in your garden.