Alan Titchmarsh is a fibber

Here at the end of a very hot flaming June, over a cup of tea, I’m looking back at some photographs I’ve taken of our garden. Flowering in the foreground is Sedum kamschaticum variegatum. At the back of that is a towering specimen of Buddleia Globosa. It’s flowering wonderfully but it’s massive! There is a reason why I have had to let it get so big. 

This is its third summer here. All the received wisdom is that you prune your buddleias in early Spring, everyone knows that. However this advice does not apply to B. Globosa.

I planted it as a pot grown shrub, as it was in the Spring, I duly cut it back. I got lots of healthy foliage but no flowers, I wasn’t worried, it was just settling in, how lovely it would be in its second year. Unfortunately, I again pruned it in Spring. I was puzzled why there were no flowers the following Summer, it just kept growing, getting bigger and bigger. 

When pruning time came round again THIS Spring, I checked on-line and discovered, unlike the Davidii cultivars, Buddleia Globosa only flowers on last year’s growth so I had been cutting off all the flower-bearing branches. Even though it was already quite big, if I wanted flowers this year, I would have to leave off pruning for at least another few months so it just got bigger until it got to the gigantic proportions you see. 

Who knew Alan Titchmarsh was such a fibber ... he even repeated the advice “If you haven’t already done it, prune your Buddleias now” on his Classic FM Programme one Saturday morning in March; of course he was talking about Davidii but even so, I was tempted to send a cross letter!