Biting Back at Henbit

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Sarah L. Ivy

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Photo Credit: Lee Ivy

If you find this plant in your yard or garden beds, it’s time to take a bite out of henbit.

I’ve always liked plants with purple flowers – except for those little purple-flowered plants I discovered in my own lawn one day. Much to my dismay, these pesky blooms weren’t a new variety of flowering grass in my front yard, but rather a nuisance weed: henbit.

You can find henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) just about anywhere – the bothersome purple patches dot lawns and roadsides throughout the US. It flowers in spring and summer in regions with cool summers, and it blooms during winter down in the warmer south. You can easily ID this nuisance plant by its purple blooms and its leaves that attach directly to the stem. But if you’re still not sure, just take a close gander at that stem – if it’s square, it’s henbit you’re dealing with.

While I find weeds fascinating, I sure don’t want them in my garden. And when it comes to henbit, it helps to know a little about the plant so you can best control it.

The first bit of helpful information is knowing when it blooms. The weed usually visits lawns and landscape beds when temperatures are cool, which is late fall/early spring where I live in the Southeast. Here it’s considered a winter annual weed and blooms during that time. When finished flowering, the plant releases seeds that lie in the ground all summer and germinate when conditions are favorable again the following fall.

Warnings

When it comes to herbicides or pesticides, more is not better. Be sure to only use the label-recommended rate for optimal control of weeds in your garden.
When controlling henbit and other broadleaf weeds in your lawn with a post-emergent herbicide, be sure to select a product that’s labeled to kill those weeds specifically and said not to harm turf. This is called a “selective herbicide.”

Facts

Not only do the plant’s square stems identify the offending weed as henbit, it also places the species squarely in the mint family (or Lamiaceae). In fact, all plants in the mint family have square stems, so if you ever spot any, you’ll now know what family of plants you’re dealing with.

Tips

If you spray your garden with herbicides (plant killers) and pesticides (insect & disease killers), use two different sprayers – one for each kind of chemical. (And be sure to mark each sprayer accordingly.)

Tools

A pump sprayer is a must-have for gardeners dealing with weed control. Just be sure to always follow the entire label instructions and mix pesticides carefully!

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Next Steps

Articles

Weed Management: Part 1
Learn some preventative methods to minimize – and possibly eliminate – the time you spend fighting garden weeds.
Weed Management: Part 2
Learn how to remove garden weeds without encouraging further weed issues.

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