I never saw this plant for sale before the last few years, though I guess it has been around. While still container gardening, I was out in May looking for a 'Silver Mound' artemisia to replace one that didn't look like it was coming back for the spring. A nurseryman recommended this plant instead. (And told me I was being too impatient. Sure enough, the artemisia showed signs of growth within the next few weeks.)

I bought the brass buttons anyway and see it often now at nurseries, if not chain stores. There's good reason for that.

Evergreen in Zone 9 and in theory hardy to Zone 4, it sticks low to the ground, staying about two inches tall. It grows well full or afternoon sun in slightly dry soil. I haven't used it in a path but have knelt on it while weeding and it hasn't complained. From a distance, it does play the same role as artemisia, the soft leaf shape and silver green giving a cool, water-like feel to the space it encompasses. And it's velvety soft to the touch as well as the eye.

The common name of 'brass buttons' is from the flowers that blanket the plant from June to frost. They resemble some chamomile flowers - small, gold pollen mounds on straight stems with no petals at all that I can see. They look like just like someone obsessive spent hours picking the petals off tiny daisies. The butterflies and hover flies seem to like them, though the bees couldn't care less.

It does not spread invasively but fills in quickly enough to satisfy. In the ground, the plants grew to about 2 feet in diameter over the course of two years. In this third year, they have exhausted the soil in the middle of the patch and have a green, healthy band of growth around a dismal and dying center.

The cotula has rooted as it expanded, so I need to dig up the plants, add amendment to the spot where they grew, then put back in vigorous rooted snippets from the outside of the plant. In the case of brass buttons, this task is not as bad as say, day lilies, which I've heard take the application of an ax to divide. A shovel, a trowel and half an hour should take care of these. 

Text and images Copyright 1998 Cyndi Kirkpatrick. All rights reserved