Recognize and treat frost damage

Frozen or not? - This is how the vitality test works

If a butterfly bush is well rooted in the bed, even freezing frost does not cause it any problems. Threatening frost damage usually occurs when, after a mild weather period in late winter, Godfather Frost strikes again mercilessly. The ornamental shrub cannot cope with this strenuous back and forth and drastically freezes back. With a vitality test you can find out whether there is still life in your Buddleja davidii. That is how it goes:

• Use a sharp, disinfected knife
• Scrape off a little of the brown discolored bark on the branch
• Remove only a little bark to reveal the underlying tissue

If green tissue appears under the bark, life is still pulsing in the instinct. Wherever there is brown tissue beneath the surface, the branch has frozen to death.

Pruning brings the butterfly bush back on track

If the vitality test has shown that a butterfly bush has only partially frozen, there is justified hope of a summer bloom. Now you can benefit from its property that this buddleia species always blooms on this year's wood. Cut You should therefore back all shoots back to 30 or 50 cm. Completely dead shoots are thinned out at the base.

Care after pruning

The harsh winter and consistent pruning demanded a lot from your butterfly bush. So that he now has enough energy reserves for a fresh sprout available, he receives a generous portion of compost Horn shavings.(€ 32.93 at Amazon *) Rake the fertilizer material only superficially on the root disc and pour more. You can pamper a shrub in a bucket with liquid fertilizer for flowering trees.