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Has anyone tried growing the Butterfly-bush (Buddleja davidii) from seed?

If so, can I expect flowers in the first year?

Are they really that quick a grower?

The Chiltern Seeds catalogue says...One of the easiest shrubs to grow from seed and an early sowing can flower the first year.

Some produce a few flowers on the first year but most don't flower properly until the second year. Yes they really are fast growing, the seeds (an average of 3 million from one shrub) get everywhere & can lay dormant for years so if you plant one you will probably spend the rest of your life trying to remove its offspring.

We were the only people on the street yrs ago that had a yellow buddliea. 
I dug up a totally different plant for a neighbor and a few yrs. later she found a yellow buddliea growing in their yard- undoubtedly from a seed of ours gone dormant.

I wouldn't recommend the yellow one we had compared to the fragrance of the purple ones.
Also, I'd agree with Baccy, you probably wouldn't have much in the way of blooms if any that first year. Then they become huge and we have to cut them almost to the ground each season.

I keep pulling them up from between the flags in the garden and selling them at the plant sale  ;D

Yes...  :-[

Do they come true from seed ?

I've always taken cuttings and they flower in the first year.

Just take a pencil thick piece, 12" or so long, with a pair of new leaves at the top (cut just above the node), cut the bottom just below a node and then just shove it the ground so that 1/4 is still showing. Do this now and it 'll be waist high and flowering by next august, year 2 it will be shoulder high, year 3 about 3 metres.

Each year I do 10 cuttings of different colours to sell at the local scout gala day.
They always sell well.

I cut mine down to knee high every year to make them bushy, they provided me with a endless supply of pea sticks.

Guess I must be the only person in the world who couldn't manage to get one to grow last year, gives me lot of hope for the rest of the garden.

they are very easy from seed, and will grow anywhere (on roof of block of flats nr us, along the historic town wall, etc)
they are now about to be puton the 'banned' list in scotland, due to them being very invasive, non-native species.
why not grow globuosa, better for bees!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_globosa