It’s beautiful, fragrant and butterflies love it. So do many gardeners.

“It got every single butterfly you could think of,” a friend tells me. “The clearwing moth lived in it.” Although she gave her Butterfly Bush (Buddleja davidii) to a friend when it was losing a territorial dispute to a Winterberry (Ilex verticillata), she still lights up at the memory of the diversity and number of visitors it attracted

But there are two key strikes against this alien plant from China, leading to the Great Butterfly Bush Debate. 

- It does not support future generations of butterflies because it is not a host plant, meaning that its foliage cannot be consumed by any lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) that are native to North America. 

- It’s extremely invasive in many parts of the world, each plant's hundreds of thousands of dust-like seeds borne on the wind into disturbed areas like roadsides, railroads, abandoned lots, and riparian areas where it smothers native plant communities. 

I got drawn into the Great Butterfly Bush Debate at a recent talk I gave on pollinators, organized by Tiny Township at the Perkinsfield Community Gardens.
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I have done my part, unintentionally, in making my yard a haven for alien invasive species.

I planted Periwinkle, having seen it looking pretty in local forests and thinking it a native “wildflower.” 

From nearby ditches, I dug up Dame’s Rocket and Bouncing Bet, locally known as wild phlox.

I planted variegated Bishop’s Goutweed. 

I planted Crown Vetch. 

I planted two Norway Maples. And two Amur Maples that I actually grew from seed purchased from the (now closed) Ontario Tree Seed Plant 20 years ago, at a time when the native status of a plant was not viewed as a critical consideration.

All these plants loved my place.

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There’s a small pile of books on a table by my desk - the writers are my go-to references for garden questions. Heather Holm, Doug Tallamy and the late Henry Koch are my guides, and of course Lorraine Johnson, whose 100 Easy-to-Grow Native Plants has been by my side since its publication in 1999.

Now Johnson, along with co-author York University professor Sheila Colla, has produced another winner: A Garden for the Rusty-patched Bumblebee - Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators (Douglas & McIntyre) is a wonderful introduction to the world of our pollinating friends.

Like so many other insects, the Rusty-patched is a bee that was once abundant across eastern Canada and North America and is now in steep decline. In Canada, the last individual was found, by Colla, in 2009 at Pinery Provincial Park. In 2012 it had the “unfortunate distinction” of becoming the first native bee to be designated as endangered in Canada.
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