I cut mine back in the spring and deadhead after blooms.

thanks ruthz

I pruned mine back today before reading your reply. It just looked so scraggly and some of the old branches never did leaf out. The new sprouts are ready to bloom already and the leaves on the old branches have barely grown.

This post was edited by marti8a on Fri, May 24, 13 at 1:46

Hi I'm from Round Rock, north of Austin. I am looking into getting a butterfly bush. Can I prune it back to a small bush. I don't want a large plant.

I ran across a test a man did on his showing progress photos. He trimmed one down to the ground in early spring and left the other one next to it untrimmed to compare.

By mid season, both shrubs were the exact same height except the untrimmed was not nearly as thick and robust and had far fewer blooms. Also, the dead blooms never fell off from the previous season so he had new blooms with last years together. Part of the experiment was to see if that actually did happen. It did.

I am trimming mine next year.

chrissy60-- if you want a small shrub there are cultivars that are much smaller available. I saw some just today at Home Depot. They were short and loaded with blooms.

A friend gave me Blue Chip a few years back, and it blooms profusely. It is a small, compact plant that I have in a container so I can move it where I need the color.

That's good to know Great Plains.