Button flowers
By: Garden Gate staff
| 1 of 4
Beautiful button flowers
They may be small but button flowers make a big impact, thanks to interesting details and striking shape.
Use them in a table top container, where the rounded flowerheads create an interesting centerpiece without getting in the way of conversation. Or put them alongside a path or walkway, to give those traveling through your garden extra ways to enjoy the journey.
Just why are they called “button flowers” though? Their centers, slightly convex or protruding, are often the most prominent part of the bloom, creating a buttonlike look. These small flowers have tightly packed petals or dense centers surrounded by fewer petals. Either structure makes for eye-catching fine texture, especially when contrasted with large blooms or leaves.
Click ahead to learn more about 3 must-have button flowers and how to grow them!
| 2 of 4
Bellissima English daisy Bellis perennis
As Bellissima™ English daisy blooms and matures, its narrow petals multiply inward, until the bright yellow centers are hardly visible. Plant them up the same way as pansies — a mass of these 1½-inch double flowers creates a carpet of color, like Bellissima Red and Bellissima Rose Bicolor here. Just make sure plants have some shade, even if it’s from nearby perennials, and stay well-watered.
Type Perennial
Blooms Red, pink, white or pink and white bicolor in early spring and fall
Light Part shade
Soil Moist, well-drained
Size 6 to 10 in. tall, 5 to 12 in. wide
Cold-hardy USDA zones 4 to 8
Heat-tolerant AHS zones 12 to 1
Source Local garden centers
| 3 of 4
Anthemis Anthemis tinctoria
Bright yellow anthemis, sometimes referred to as “golden marguerite” or “Dyer’s chamomile,” adds lots of color to any spot with very well-drained soil — a must for this perennial. In fact, it likes poor, dry soil best. Anthemis, like compact ‘Charme’ in the photo, at just 12 to 16 inches tall, is covered in 1-inch flowers from summer to frost and reblooms well when deadheaded.
Type Perennial
Blooms Bright yellow from summer to frost
Light Full sun
Soil Well-drained to dry, best in poor or gravelly
Size 12 to 36 in. tall and wide
Cold-hardy USDA zones 3 to 7
Heat-tolerant AHS zones 7 to 1
| 4 of 4
Pincushion flower Scabiosa spp. and hybrids
‘Butterfly Blue’, left, is a vigorous cultivar that’s more compact than other pincushion flowers, at 12 to 18 inches tall and wide. This clump-forming perennial has an impressive bloom time, too, extending to the first frost — in warm winter areas, it flowers almost all year. Plants will benefit from deadheading throughout the season — cut spent flowers back to the first leaf node — as well as some shade in hot-summer areas.
Type Perennial
Blooms Dark burgundy, white, pink, red, lavender and purple from late spring to frost
Light Full sun to part shade
Soil Well-drained
Size 4 to 36 in. tall, 4 to 18 in. wide
Cold-hardy USDA zones 3 to 10
Heat-tolerant AHS zones 10 to 1
Source Local garden centers
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
