Bachelor button is a charming wildflower that grows easily with other plants. Its thistle-like blooms in striking blue, purple or white can make an eye-catching planting with other flowering plants. It also functions in warding off pests, attracting beneficial insects, and suppressing annual weeds. Use it in a cultivated garden bed or a naturalistic, wildlife-friendly part of your landscape to take advantage of both its ornamental and functional qualities.
Photo by Mark Wordy, unmodified, Flickr, copyright CC BY 2.0
Typically bachelor’s button blooms in late spring or early summer and sets seed during the summer. Growing bachelor’s buttons in a partially shaded area helps them to stay cool in the summer and extends blooming by a few weeks. Deadheading also extends blooming by preventing the plants from developing seeds. Plant bachelor’s button in a cutting garden or ornamental flower border where stems can be cut for arrangements on a regular basis.
Shrubs To Plant With Bachelor’s Button
Grow bachelor’s button as part of a naturalized lower story that both suppresses weeds and attracts pollinators for fruit trees and shrubs. Early blooming deciduous shrubs like lilac, forsythia, and red twig dogwood look great behind a layer of cheerful bachelor’s buttons. Mid and late-season blooming shrubs like butterfly bush, weigela, ninebark, and tri-color willows can provide some shade to keep bachelor’s buttons cool, extending their bloom time.
Perennials To Plant With Bachelor’s Button
Naturalized bachelor’s buttons provide a lovely ground cover for herbaceous perennials. Select plants that prefer well-draining, moderately fertile soil, such as lamb’s ear, Shasta daisy, coreopsis, lady’s mantle, bee balm, chamomile, and bloody cranesbill. This combination would make an enchanting garden spot that provides flowers for arranging throughout the summer. More laid-back and relaxed perennials like tall ornamental grasses, whirling butterflies, coneflower, and ornamental alliums grow easily with bachelor’s button, filling in and around their textural leaves.
Photo by Mark Wordy, unmodified, Flickr, copyright CC BY 2.0
Annuals To Plant With Bachelor’s Button
Although bachelor’s buttons are charming ornamental plants, they really shine as pollinator plants to increase crop yields of early vegetables like snap peas. Plant bachelor’s buttons near a kitchen garden to attract pollinators to edible crops. They can also increase pollinators in a naturalized area of other self-seeding annuals like California poppy, calendula, nasturtiums, cosmos, and borage to create a wildlife-friendly planting with longstanding color each year.
Photo by Mark Wordy, unmodified, Flickr, copyright CC BY 2.0
Best Companion Plants For Bachelor’s Button in Containers
Bachelor’s button makes a great filler plant in large containers that feature taller thriller plants like delphinium, caladium, Egyptian papyrus reeds, or stipa grass. Use the blue color of its spring flower to play off of bright spring bulbs like alliums, daffodils, and tulips. Later in the summer if the bachelor’s button is flagging or has started to set seed, it can easily be removed to make room for late summer and fall filler plants like ornamental peppers, ornamental kale, or pansies.
Plants Not To Grow With Bachelor’s Button
Bachelor's button grows best in temperate climates with moderate humidity levels. Climates with dry summers such as desert plateau or southwest desert areas typically are too hot and dry for bachelor’s button once early summer comes around. These areas are ideal for growing cacti, succulents, and aloes, which prefer dry conditions and make poor companions for bachelor’s button.
Best Plants To Grow With Bachelor’s Button
Bachelor’s button has a relaxed and naturalized look that pairs best with other annual and perennial wildflowers. Choose companions with staggered bloom times to ensure color all season. Planting bachelor’s button amongst Shasta daisy, foxglove, coreopsis, cranesbill, and clumping ornamental grasses results in a lovely meadow-like display that remains in bloom for many months.
Sources: “Bachelor’s Button.” Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses. kswildflower.org