By Grace Broyles
There’s a bush growing in the middle of the Elm Creek bed at the water crossing near us that has intrigued me for a number of years now. I did a bit of research on it as it continues to thrive no matter if the creek has water in it, or we have had a crazy deep freeze, or a torrent of rain water runs into the creek and the creek becomes a river and washes everything in its path away towards Lake Abilene.
The off-white 1 inch to 1-1/2 inch flower spheres that appear in late spring are very interesting, as are the chocolate brown balls they transform into as the year progresses. The pollinators that hover around and wiggle inside the flowers on warm days are fun to watch. So much activity!
It’s a Button Bush, a plant in the Madder family of flowering plants that includes Coffee plants, Gardenias, Pentas, and the Common Madder plant that produces a very useful red dye. These are good-looking ornamental shrub plants, with smooth green leaves that grow in whorls on the stems. The Button Bush is also called Honey Bush, or Common Buttonbush, and is a native plant found here in Texas, and also in Eastern Canada, upper Mississippi River Valley, and in Northeast Kansas, and from Florida and across the south to Texas. It can grow 6 -12 feet tall or even taller, and as wide, with multi-branched trunks. It produces glossy long, narrow, dark green leaves in the spring, and then later in the spring or early summer, round white or pale pink pincushion-looking spiky flower heads appear. These are made up of many small tube-like flowers, with long pistils, smelling mildly of honey.
The Button Bush loves wet or moist sand and loamy soils and can be found in swamps, around ponds, and along streams, and can even be found on dry limestone bluffs, and in clay soils. It is a fast-growing plant, and can be used in landscapes to prevent erosion caused by water. It is also a great plant to use as a border along a barrow ditch that fills with water whenever there are downpours.
And best of all, pollinators love the flowers. Native bees, honey bees, bumble bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths, especially Sphinx moths. Titan and Hydrangea moths use the plant as a host plant for their eggs/caterpillars. At the end of the year, water and shore birds enjoy the little brown seeds or “nuts” (2 produced by each flower) making up the “buttons” when they ripen.
The plant gets a little crooked and leans some as the seasons progress. But it can be pruned back into the shape the gardener desires by lopping off the unwanted ends. The best time to trim would be in the winter when the plant is dormant, and it has lost most of its leaves. The bush can also be trimmed to grow as a small tree, with the stronger trunks selected; choose an odd number of trunks for the most pleasing visual arrangement.
The Button Bush can be propagated by seed, after the round seed balls turn brown. The seeds do not need to be treated and can be placed in the moist ground or in a pot of moist soil just under the surface of the soil immediately upon harvesting. The pots need to be protected from the cold of the winter inside a green house or other covered area. In the spring, tiny little Button Bushes should appear. These tiny plants should be kept moist and weed free in their pots for a year. If several of these bushes are planted, they should be placed at least 3 feet apart.
The Button Bush can also be propagated by fresh green stem cuttings. A 4-inch to 6-inch length of stem should be cut off the bush just below a node. All but 1 or 2 leaves should be removed. The stem should then be dipped in root hormone and placed in a pencil-sized hole in a pot of moist soil. The soil should be gently pressed around the stem, and then kept moist at all times. A make-shift greenhouse made of a clean plastic container or plastic bag could be used to keep it moist, and placed in a spot with bright indirect light. In a few weeks, roots will form, and the plant will begin sprouting tiny new leaves. It can then be planted into its permanent location.
For those of us who love the idea of cultivars, there are Button Bush cultivars available:
“Bailoptics” grows a bushy 6 X 6 feet tall and wide, with new shoot growth that is reddish-brown, not green.
“Bieberich” grows 12 X 15 feet tall and wide and produces pinkish flower balls. It takes on a bronze color in the fall.
“Sugar Shack” grows 4 x 4 feet tall and wide with a dense growth. Its leaves have a reddish tone in the spring and the fall, and the seed balls are also red rather than brown.
We may not live where moist soils are readily available all year long, but near a drain spout in a flower bed, at the edge of a water garden, or along a stream or beside a low water crossing driveway may work for a Button Bush in full sun in a West Texas landscape.
The Big Country Master Gardener Association presents free education programs every month. There is a program at 6:00 p.m. on the 1st Tuesday of the month at the Abilene Public Library South Branch in the Mall of Abilene, and the same program is presented again at 10:00 a.m. on the 2nd Friday of the month at the Abilene Public Library main branch in downtown Abilene. We also have a Master Gardener Saturday Seminar from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon on the last Saturday of the month from February through August in the Taylor County Extension Office Conference Room. The theme for the monthly BCMGA Library and Saturday Seminar presentations in 2025 is “The Year of the Garden.”
We are here to help you. If you have any questions, call the Taylor County Extension Office at 325-672-6048 or email us at bcmgardeners@yahoo.com. We hope you will also visit our Facebook page, our website at bcmgtx.org, and the BCMGA YouTube channel for all Big Country Master Gardener information, events, and training.
Until next week, happy gardening!