HUMDINGER® Little Nugget Butterfly Bush

‘Little Nugget’ is a compact, round-mounded butterfly bush in the HUMDINGER® series. The cultivar patent describes magenta-purple flowers with small orange throats, brilliant gold lance-shaped leaves, and flowering from midsummer until frost. Its trial observations are explicitly based on three-year-old nursery field plants, which were about 1 metre tall and 1.2 metres wide; those measurements are contextual rather than a universal garden size. [Cultivar patent](https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP28152P2/en) ## Flowers and Foliage The patent describes many-flowered compact panicles, with bloom beginning in mid-July and continuing into late October at the Michigan trial site. ‘Little Nugget’ was selected for the contrast between the dark magenta-purple flowers and bright gold foliage. Color, flowering dates, and growth can shift with local temperature, light, moisture, fertility, and maturity. ## Garden Use Its low, branched, rounded outline suits a sunny mixed border or a compact shrub grouping. [RHS](https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/380463/buddleja-little-nugget-humdinger-series/details) lists the accepted name Buddleja ‘Little Nugget’ in the Humdinger Series, while the [plant patent](https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP28152P2/en) describes the selection as a Buddleia hybrid. Both sources identify the same named cultivar. ## Siting Plant in open sun and well-drained soil. The patent’s size observations came from loamy-sand field trials with supplemental water and fertilizer, so they should not be treated as a fixed mature-size guarantee. ## Maintenance The patent observations describe stems cut back to roughly 15 cm in fall or early spring to promote new growth and flowering. In colder areas, wait until spring for the main cutback; established shrubs can resprout from the base. Water regularly while establishing and avoid persistently wet soil.