Buddleia
Sooner or later the beginner is tempted by the very romance of the name to plant a representative of this genus. I succumbed some 20 years ago, and long since transferred my allegiance to rhododendrons as easily the best flowering evergreens.
I find it easy to become almost lyrical about the ling of our Yorkshire moors. Indeed, were the garden around my house left to nature, the patches of heathers from the moors nearby would soon creep back in. Gloriously informal and lending themselves to most planting schemes providing the soil is acid, they really are plants which thrive on the minimum of attention.
Except in the most favoured localities it is wiser to concentrate on varieties of Camellia japonica such as Adolphe Audusson, blood red, semi double; donckelarii, large crimson blooms flecked with white; elegans, deep peach pink, very large; and Lady Clare which is soft pink and although its rather spreading branches are often damaged under heavy snow, it is lovely as a wall plant.
The pruning back to between 3 and 9 buds of the previous year’s growth is performed in March. Of the Many varieties listed, Black ‘Knight with deep violet flowers makes a striking picture against a grey background. Royal Red. when thinned to only 3 or 5 branches, yields the most enormous ‘anicles of dark red flowers which bordeon the verge of vulgarity.
Fascinating and Charming are two which could be properly described as pink while White Bouquet and White Cloud, as the names imply, supply a patch of white to relieve the bolder colours. Cuttings, will root at any time during the growing season. The Orange Ball Tree, B. globosa, is altogether too gaunt and straggling to be pleasant. In June ,when covered with globose orange flowers it has a brief beauty but in my opinion it is not worth the 12 months ground rent needed.
A free-draining soil is advisable, for though caragana will grow in wet clay it makes a much smaller shrub than the normal 15 ft. and it is rather short lived. Cuttings taken with a heel of old wood in mid- August can be persuaded to root without much difficulty, but seed is far easier and more interesting. I discovered this by accident 8 years ago, when a single sowing of caragana seed eventually produced some vigorously upright bushes, another flat topped and spreading and yet another which stubbornly refused to grow more than 4 ft. high.
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