billy buttons

if this is the same as batchelors buttons i treat it as an annual, though it is a short lived perennial.
Welcome to GoY too.

If you Google billy buttons it has an article about a plant called Craspedia globosa. Don't know it but looks interesting. Chiltern Seeds sell it and say that it is best grown as a half hardy annual. It says that it's worth trying to nurse it through a British winter under cloches.