Plant Finder

Other Names:  Common Button Bush

Description:

An interesting, upright, vase shaped evergreen shrub with narrow, light green, feathery leaves tightly arranged around the stems; clusters of cream to pale yellow flowers from late winter to early summer, followed by attractive seed heads

Ornamental Features

Buttonbush is covered in stunning clusters of creamy white button flowers with buttery yellow overtones at the ends of the branches from late winter to early summer. The flowers are excellent for cutting. The white fruits are held in abundance in spectacular clusters from late summer to late winter. It has light green evergreen foliage. The tiny narrow leaves remain light green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Buttonbush is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with an indistinguished habit of growth. It lends an extremely fine and delicate texture to the landscape composition which can make it a great accent feature on this basis alone.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and may require the occasional pruning to look its best. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Buttonbush is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Container Planting
• Bog Gardens

Planting & Growing

Buttonbush will grow to be about 6 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 4 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 20 years.

This shrub performs well in both full sun and full shade. It is quite adaptable, prefering to grow in average to wet conditions, and will even tolerate some standing water. This plant should be periodically fertilized throughout the active growing season with a specially-formulated acidic fertilizer. It is particular about its soil conditions, with a strong preference for sandy, acidic soils, and is able to handle environmental salt. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This species is not originally from North America..

Buttonbush makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. Because of its height, it is often used as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the center of the pot, surrounded by smaller plants and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.