Buttonbush grows in wet places, even in standing water. This versatile little shrub will grow in full sun to part shade. It rarely needs pruning but if you prefer a shapely shrub, early spring is the best time and you can even cut them back all the way to the ground and they will fully grow back. It is native to many areas in North America, including, of course, North Carolina. This is a wonderful pollinator-friendly shrub that blooms typically in June, with kind of crazy 1.5" blooms that (to me) look like a firework exploding (or as one of my customer’s son so astutely observed, COVID-19).

Button bush has a generally rounded habit.  It grows from 6-12' tall, depending on conditions.  Frankly, I could not describe a plant with such specificity as Missouri Botanical Gardens: "Tiny, tubular, 5-lobed, fragrant white flowers appear in dense, spherical, long-stalked flower heads. Flower heads mature into hard spherical ball-like fruits consisting of multiple tiny two-seeded nutlets. Fruiting heads usually persist throughout the winter. Ovate to elliptic glossy bright green leaves (to 6” long) are in pairs or whorls. Leaves emerge late in spring (May). Genus name comes from the Greek words cephalo (head) and anthos (flower)."