Easily grown shrub, can grow in both dry soils and partly moist soils. Prefers sandy or rocky soils with good drainage. Deep roots aid in drought tolerance.

Provides winter interest: new twigs are bright yellow and stand out.

Common name came from when the plant's dried leaves were used as a tea substitute during the American Revolutionary War.

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A dense small shrub of multiple upright yellow-brown to red-brown stems that get about 3 feet high. It bears short, broad, dense, upright spikes of little white flowers that have a little fragrant scent in June-July for about 2 or 3 weeks. Its root system is shallow but made of large, coarse, lateral roots of dark red color, nitrogen-fixing, and making the plant difficult to transplant. In nature it grows in upland well-drained soils of woodland edges, meadows, prairie, and glades. Its native range is a little of southeast Canada north of Lakes Erie and Ontario, southern New England down into central Florida, to east Texas, up to central Minnesota. I had one for several years, but it died out because of the increasing shade of bigger plants and in winter the rabbits would eat it down to the ground. The leaves are edible for humans and a tea can be made from them. It is available from large, diverse nurseries, native plant nurseries, and specialty nurseries. Not well-known or used by the general public in yards. Occasionally used by landscape architects and designers and park district staff who know the nice, cute, little plant.

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