Black secretion on Buddleia bud

[SweetCicely]

One of my Buddleia's has developed a nasty problem, anyone have any idea what it is? The buds are badly infected and the leaves are mottled, none of my other Buddleia's are affected and I was thinking it might be a genetic problem.

[Val]

Ours went in a similar to that, SweetCicely, but not as much black, the tips that should flower were all shrivelled up though. I cut all the affected parts off & burnt the bits, if they regrew shriveled, I repeated the cutting off, some did grow back normally thogh. It took a year for them to grow properly again, but they have recovered now. Buddleia are usually very hardy plants & I think whatever was wrong it has saved itself. It didn't affect the other Buddleia we have.
I have Googled & there is nothing about what is wrong with your plant or was wrong with mine.

[SweetCicely]

Thanks, Val. I too have looked on the net but to no avail!! I have concluded that it must be a virus, its one of the new varieties of Buddleia's that are bred to be smaller and named after butterflies. I think probably a genetic problem here and as you have done, I have cut back the infected stems and see how it goes from there, hopefully I wont lose it.

[Val]

Just noticed all the mistakes I made typing that post, it was late though. You got the gist though, SweetCicely.
You still might have the flower tips growing like that, cut them off again & see what happens. Possibly it won't flower well this year though.

[Honesty]

Have you considered feeding damage by figwort weevil?

[SweetCicely]

Thanks Honesty. Reading up on Figwort Weevil its very likely that it was the culprit. I cut off the damaged buds and the Buddleia has recovered beautifully with lots of new flower buds waiting to open. Now waiting for the butterflies to arrive, we had lots of visits in Spring but apart from the odd White coming in, its been very quiet in the garden!

[Kits]

I was saying elsewhere how quiet it has been for butterflies so far. Glad to hear your buddleia recovered.