Butterfly bush ‘White Ball’

* Common name: Dwarf butterfly bush ‘White Ball’

* Botanical name: Buddleia davidii ‘White Ball’

* What it is: A sun-loving compact flowering shrub that gets white flower cones from mid-summer through frost. It’s a well behaved butterfly bush… supposedly sterile and not a threat to seed around where it’s unwanted. As the name implies, it’s a butterfly (and bee) magnet.

* Size: Grows a nice 4 feet tall and wide – much neater than the older, gangly 8-foot butterfly bushes.

* Where to use: ‘White Ball’ is compact enough to use along sunny foundations. Also nice on sunny banks, around mailboxes, in perennial borders and especially in butterfly gardens.

* Care: Once established, very heat- and drought-tolerant. Needs water only in worst droughts. Plant in well drained soil… wet clay is a death trap for butterfly bushes. Snip off flower cones as they brown out and shear whole plant back to about ankle high at the end of each winter. Note: Butterfly bushes are late to leaf out in spring.

* Great partner: Blue hollies and/or tall ornamental grasses make nice big brothers, while shorter blue- or purple-blooming, butterfly-attracting perennials such as catmint, lavender or hardy geraniums are good around ‘White Ball’s’ feet.