Colletia armata (Patagonian Butterfly Bush)

Small evergreen tree from South America, with wicked spines and delicious flowers. Highly unusual and few grow it, so it’s rather desirable in a ‘don’t touch me’ kind of way. Described often as a ‘heap of barbed wire’ which is unkind. As far as we know, legions of butterflies are rarely attracted to heaps of barbed wire and this intriguing tree most certainly smells better.

Up close it’s a fractal galaxy of crayon-green stems plastered in tiny spines: also green. These spines are ferocious and among them are teensy leaves spread very sparse. Technically deciduous but you’d never notice. The profusion of spines and density of stems give this bush a hazy outline from a distance that’s deceptively soft and very weird. If this weren’t enough intrigue, tiny pink-tinged white flowers will smother it in summer, each teeny little polyp giving the entire plant a very ‘coral reef’ aspect, especially with each bulbous-based trumpet seeming to pulse, blowing marzipan kisses at each other. It’s these the flutterbyes will flock toward: there’s a fine Red Admiral on one of ours as you can see, and their scent will completely fill your garden. Give it reasonably well drained soil in plenty of light. Often suggested for pots where it can be successful but ponderous, we find. Instead, stick it in the ground in a warm corner and it will gallop. Fantastic for any garden and particularly for connoisseurs of the strange and rare, and perhaps those wanting to really test their creative maintenance skills to the extreme by making it into a single trunked short little tree, all broad and dense. Invest in gauntlets and goggles.

Introduced from Patagonia in the 1880s, we propagate this from cuttings. We think the original material came from Wakehurst Place in Sussex.