The satisfactions of creeping Charlie

One benefit of working at home is that when you get frustrated or bored you can go outside and pull creeping Charlie instead of fretfully wandering down the hall to the candy machine in the office lunchroom and eating M&Ms you didn't really want.

There is always creeping Charlie to pull. With its bright green scalloped leaves it is very easy to spot, even among other shade-loving ground covers, and you don't need a weeder. You can just feel down with your fingertips for the long stem (four-sided, because it's a mint relative) that lies along the ground between the other plants, stealthily rooting from its leaf nodes. If you pull gently, quite a length of stem often will slide out from between the grass blades or English ivy. Delicacy is essential: If you yank roughly, you'll just break off a small bit.

Sometimes you can follow the stem and find the crown of the plant, where there's a larger clump of roots and several stems slinking away in various directions. Very gratifying to pull up. With proper technique, you can amass quite a satisfying wad of creeping Charlie in a 10-minute break.

I like weeding. It makes me feel like I'm in control -- at least of a small patch of my garden, where I get to decide which plants are authorized and which are not. In fact, a garden could almost be defined as a place where someone weeds.

Of course, this control is fleeting; next week there will be more creeping Charlie (and other unauthorized plants). There is always more creeping Charlie. In fact, there is always more creeping Charlie six feet away, which is why, when weeding, I like to assign myself a defined area or a limited period beyond which I must stop.

The crucial thing about creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea) is that it is unwise, if not downright irresponsible, to put it in the compost heap. The merest little scrap that escapes the composting bugs can take root from those leaf nodes. That's why it is such a nasty invasive plant.

So put creeping Charlie (and any weeds that have set seed, or that might be poisonous, such as deadly nightshade) in the landscape waste. They will be taken away, combined with a lot of other landscape waste and composted in a vast, constantly turned, scientifically tended complex of piles that will reach much higher and more lethal temperatures than you could hope to sustain in a home bin. That way your creeping Charlie won't come back to haunt you.

Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe.

All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.