Dead nettle is a valuable shade-loving, perennial ground cover that will quickly spread out and fill in an area of ground that may stay bare except for weed growth. In sheltered areas of your yard or warm regions, dead nettle can be an evergreen. In other places, depending on the environment, it’s very likely you’ll get herbaceous, semi-evergreen plants. Both the foliage and flowers will make a welcome impact on the landscape, and Lamium is part of the mint family. This gives you a welcome hint to how tough it is.
However, we’re going to be honest with you. Dead nettle is one garden plant that is an amazing addition to your yard, until it isn’t. The promise with this plant is that it’s a very fast-growing ground cover or pretty container plant that will brighten up any shaded spots in your yard and produce stunning flowers. However, this plant is also an opportunist. So, if you leave it unchecked, it can become invasive and unsightly.
We’ll outline all of this for you below.
Dead nettle is a pretty ground cover that does require regular pruning to control the growth and ensure that it doesn’t take over your space.
Dead Nettle Caution
In the mint family, there are 50 Lamium species, and they’re commonly called dead nettles because the leaves look like stinging nettles without the ability to sting. In mild climates, this virtually evergreen plant is a very low creeper, and some cultivars can mound. Since it’s a member of the mint family, it has square stems, an aggressively spreading habit, and toothy-edges leaves.
Most people grow dead nettle for the two-toned foliage, and it can be marked with splashes or frosted. During late spring or early summer, this plant can surprise you with small flowers that look like snapdragons, and they come in colors ranging from pink or white to purple.
Now for the cautionary tale. There is one aggressive variety of dead nettle called Lamium galeobdolon ‘Variegatum’ that you have to be careful with. If you don’t keep it in check, this plant will take over every unoccupied space in your garden or yard and be a nightmare to take back out. The only way to get rid of it is to dig out the rhizomes. You don’t want to be fooled by the pretty yellow flowers or the silver-streaked foliage, this plant embodies the mint family’s reputation as an invasive plant.
Overview of Dead Nettle
|Bloom Time:||May to June|
|Botanical Name:||Lamium maculatum|
|Common Name:||Dead nettle or spotted dead nettle|
|Flower Color:||Purple, mauve, white, or pink, depending on the cultivar|
|Hardiness Zones:||Four to eight|
|Mature Size:||Between 3 and 12 inches tall, and the width is two to three times this|
|Native To:||West Asia, North Africa, and Europe|
|Plant Type:||Perennial life cycle but herbaceous in cooler climates|
|Soil Type:||Well-drained with average fertility and moisture needs|
|Sun Exposure:||Partial to full shade|
Popular Types of Dead Nettle
There are several popular types of dead nettle that you can plant in your yard and enjoy year after year, and they include but are not limited to:
- Album – This plant has dark green leaves with slightly silver coloring in the center with pretty white flowers. The Chicago Botanical Garden field trial of these plants ranked it highly.
- Anne Greenaway – You’ll get tricolored leaves that are dark green on the edges with a chartreuse hint. The leaves have a light silver streak down the center with light purple flowers.
- Beacon Silver – The silver gray leaves on this plant have thin green edging, and it’ll produce dark purple flowers. It was first introduced in 1976 by Beth Chatto.
- Beedham’s White – The bright yellow foliage on this plant has white flowers and white stripes, but it’s not as hardy as other cultivars. It can have an issue with winter die out in most soil conditions.
- Chequers – This vigorous dead nettle variety has green leaves with a thicker silver stripe down the center, and it produces dark pink flowers.
- Cosmopolitan – Walters Gardens introduced this miniature Shell Pink cultivar, and it has virtually all-silver, very small leaves. The compact ha