Hard pruning a Buddleia

Chris_Beecham

Hi. 

I gather it's that time of year to prune a buddleia. I've taken this down from about 2m to what you see now. 

There's a fair bit of old, dry and what feels like unstable trunk. Any suggestions of how much more to take off and where?

Thanks in advance. 

Fairygirl

That looks fine. I'll be doing mine in a week or two. 
You can always take off anything unproductive later on. They're easy from cuttings too, if you ever want to replace it with a fresh specimen.  

It isn't a very big space anyway, and the soil level looks very low. It could probably do with some more soil/compost etc added, as long as you aren't covering up any planting which could then be compromised by being too deep. 

JennyJ

You could take it down lower if you wanted to, or leave it. In a month or so you'll be able to see whether any branches aren't producing new growth and either take them off then or make a note for next spring.

For myself in that small space I think I'd take the gnarly old branches back lower (I'm of the kill-or-cure school of pruning sometimes, but Buddleia is very forgiving). Something like this: