The shrub that everyone thinks is a butterfly bush: George’s Plant Pick of the Week

Here’s PennLive garden writer George Weigel’s Plant Pick of the Week for this week:

* Common name: Chaste tree

* Botanical name: Vitex agnus-castus

* What it is: Just about everyone short of discerning horticulturists thinks the chaste tree is a butterfly bush when they see one blooming this time of year.

It’s easy to understand because chaste trees have the same shrubby habit and long, slender, lavender flower spikes of more familiar butterfly bushes.

Now that most non-native butterfly bushes have fallen out of favor for their seed-around tendencies, gardeners are looking for replacements. Not many shrubs bloom in late summer, though.

Chaste trees are the closest look-alike, and although they’re also not U.S. natives (they’re native to the Mediterranean), chaste trees aren’t on P