our 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 habit makes it very useful in containers as it won’t overtake anything else you plant in the container.
- Orchid Frost – You’ll get greenish-blue leaves with a silver midvein, and the flowers are a pretty orchid-pink. Supposedly, it’s more resistant to foliar diseases and vigorous than other cultivars.
- Purple and Pink Chablis – These plants have greenish-silver leaves with a dark green edging and light pink or lavender-purple flowers.
- Purple Dragon – This plant offers bigger purple-pink flowers than most types of dead nettles you can buy, and it has smaller silver leaves with a wide green edge.
- Red Nancy – The deep pinkish-purple flowers sit way above the foliage with this dead nettle, and it offers silver leaves with thin green margins and reddish stems. It’s one of the best performers in terms of flowering and longevity.
- Shell Pink – As the name suggests, this plant has clear pink blossoms. The Chicago Botanical Garden named this cultivar one of the best performers with green leaves and silver striping foliage. It was the only plant in the dead nettle category to secure a five star rating.
- White Nancy – As the name suggests, this dead nettle has silvery white leaves with thin green margins and white flowers. The foliage will scorch if you plant it in full sun, and it’s not as invasive as other cultivars.
There are several dead nettle cultivars available, and some are much more aggressive than others if you don’t take the time to prune them back.
How to Grow Dead Nettle
Dead nettle stays relatively short, and most cultivars top out at below a foot tall at full maturity. However, the pretty variegated foliage will easily spread out two or three times the plant’s height. Spotted dead nettles are usually grown for the silvery leaves over the flowers, but the flowers can be stunning too. Some leaves will turn back to an all-green coloring, and you want to prune these leaves out so the green color doesn’t take over the variegated plant.
Having a tendency to spread and being a creeper, dead nettles are classic