A variety that will regenerate the buddleja market! That was the expert verdict of industry specialists as they crowned Thompson & Morgan's Buddleja ‘Buzz Indigo’ Best New Variety: Hardy Nursery Stock at the recent UK Grower Awards 2016.Hailed as the world’s first patio buddleja, all colours within the Buzz series have gone down a storm with UK gardeners looking for a more manageable way of adding the iconic flower spikes of buddleja to their planting displays. The dwarf variety reaching little more than 4ft (1.2m) in height, retains the best qualities of its larger cousin B. davidii, but has done away with all its negative aspects.
Not only do plants in the series remain bushy and compact for container growing, they will grow in almost any free-draining soil too. The scented flower spikes have extremely low fertility, virtually removing the risk of self seeding in the garden – or worse, in brickwork and hard landscaping features – something that has seen B. davidii added to the UK invasive plant species list, vastly reducing its appeal with the gardening public. While Buzz blooms won’t set seed, they are the only dwarf variety to retain the large flower size of B. davidii and certainly produce a lot of nectar - an essential attribute if gardeners are to help conservationists turn around the dramatic decline in UK butterfly populations*.
These unique attributes, plus a new colour-break, set the Thompson & Morgan entry apart from the crowd, with award judges stating: “Buddleja ‘Buzz Indigo’ has the potential to revitalise Buddleja sales with the support of a good marketing campaign, regenerating the market for the species.”
This is the second time that Thompson & Morgan’s exclusive dwarf buddleja series has been applauded at the UK Grower Awards, considered by industry insiders to be the Oscars of the plant world. In 2010, following an extensive breeding programme at its Ipswich HQ, Thompson & Morgan launched the first colour in the Buddleja ‘Buzz’ series - ‘Lilac’, which quickly took the title of Best New Plant Variety at the 2010 award bash.
Since then T&M Plant Breeding Team has been developing new flower colours to maximise the potential of this groundbreaking series, which has transformed the way buddlejas are used in UK gardens. Buddleja ‘ Buzz™ Indigo’ was launched for the 2015 gardening season, joining ‘Lilac’, ‘Magenta’, ‘Sky Blue’, ‘Candy Pink’ and ‘Ivory’.
There are no new Buzz colours for 2016, but the latest concept is set to be another strong contender for the awards in 2017. Buddleja ‘Buzz 3-in-1’, new to the Thompson & Morgan Spring Catalogue, offers three different flower colours, seemingly on the same plant. Supplied as a 3-litre potted plant it is actually three varieties grown together; each will grow in harmony and produce a compact bush with fragrant, indigo, ivory and candy pink flower spikes!
