Skip to Content

How To Get Rid Of Purple Deadnettle – 6 Quick Tips

Sharing is caring!

Purple Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) is a common weed found largely in Europe and Asia’s gardens.

It is a common winter annual herbaceous flowering plant akin to another broadleaf winter annual Lamium amplexicaule, also known as Henbit Dead-nettle. The other names for Purple Deadnettle are red deadnettle or purple archangel.

Interestingly, this weed is edible, medicinal, and easily forgeable due to its widespread nature. Lambs Quarters, Wild Spinach, and Pigweed are a few other similar weeds. Any garden or lawn looks just as lovely as a rose garden when manicured and free of weeds.

Therefore, many homeowners are looking for ways to get rid of Purple Deadnettle before it spreads. This article entails all the useful information you can use to make sure that you eliminate this weed for good! Read on to know all about how to get rid of purple deadnettle in your garden.

How To Get Rid Of Purple Deadnettle
Purple Deadnettle via Pixabay

How Does Purple Deadnettle Look Like

To get rid of Purple Deadnettle, you should first know how this herbaceous weed looks. It is a perennial plant that grows up to 30 cm in height. Its distinguishable features are its square stems.

The leaves are 2–4 cm long with purple tinges on the top. The leaves are heart-shaped, and its petals are long and pointed, while the sepals are hairy.

You can find this herbaceous weed in various habitats like meadows, woodland edges, hedgerows, and open areas. It germinates in the falls season and blooms mainly around April.

This annual winter weed bears purple flowers, either terminal or axillary and wavy to serrated margins. These small purple flowers have 1–2 cm petiole flowers and grow in clusters at the end of the stem. The flower heads are initially green but turn purple when ripe.

Purple Deadnettle is often found in moist soil but prefers wet, shady areas. Purple Deadnettle is considered an invasive species because it can take over many environments and cause native plants and wildlife problems.

The Purple Deadnettle is an invasive weed with a purple hue that can be difficult to eradicate. If you want to get rid of it, there are many home remedies that you can use.

Purple Deadnettle Vs. Henbit Dead-nettle

People often mistake Purple Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) for Henbit Dead-nettle (Lamium amplexicaule) as both grow alongside each other. Let’s look at the similarities and differences of both these weeds in detail.

Similarities

  • Both Purple Deadnettle and Henbit Dead-nettle have similar looks in their opposite leaves, square stems, and purple flowers.
  • Found in areas that are disturbed by humans, i.e., areas along with buildings, various fields and gardens
  • Both weeds belong to the mint family
  • Blooms largely in early spring
  • Both are winter annuals (germinate in fall, blooms until spring and die in early summer)
  • Another similarity is two-lipped tubular flowers.

Differences

  • Lamium purpureum has stalked leaves; in contrast, Lamium amplexicaule has unstalked leaves.
  • Purple Deadnettle has light purple flowers, while Henbit Dead-nettle’s flowers are pink to purple with darker purple spots.
  • Leaves of Purple Deadnettle are heart-shaped or triangular; conversely, the leaves of Henbit Dead-nettle are rounded and scalloped.
  • Lamium purpureum leaves have a short petiole (stem) and rounded teeth on the leaf margin on the flip side. Lamium amplexicaule leaves are deprived of leaf petiole, and they clasp the stem directly.

How To Get Rid Of Purple Deadnettle

Weeds such as Purple Deadnettle are difficult to get rid of, and you must take measures in the first place to prevent them. You must grow a healthy, green lawn and apply the appropriate fertilizer, preventing Purple Deadnettle from competing.

Purple Deadnettle likes cool-season grasses and warm-season turf. One preventative measure is to apply pre-emergent herbicides before they germinate in the late fall or early winter.

However, if this invasive weed has already taken over you, don’t worry! Still, it is possible to keep your area free from its spread.

You can find the answer to getting rid of the Purple Deadnettle with the tips below. Before moving to the removal tips, you should consider the following points:

  • You should wear gardening gloves to avoid getting urticated skin on your hands or fingers.
  • You should also work in small areas so that the weeds do not spread further.
  • Make sure all your gardening tools are clean and sanitized.

3 Significant Control Methods To Get Rid Of Purple Deadnettle

Weeds can be a real nuisance, but several ways to take care of them. Purple Deadnettle is a weed that grows prolifically all over the world.

In most cases, it can be controlled by mechanical, cultural, and chemical control methods. We will focus on these three control methods to eliminate Purple Deadnettle in your garden.

1.     Cultural Control

Cultural weed control methods involve helping crops out-compete weeds. These methods don’t provide 100% weed control but can help suppress them by increasing the ability of crops to capture light, moisture, and nutrients.

Cultural control of crops includes crop rotation, fertilizer application, hand pulling weeds, cover crops and competitive cultivars.

You can pull Purple Deadnettle by your hand, but this method only works if it is not spread to a larger area yet.

The best way to control the spread of Purple Deadnettle in your garden is by avoiding the tilling during the fall or winter. It will cease its growth because this weed needs well-disturbed areas to grow well.

2.     Biological Control

The use of organic herbicides can help reduce the widespread of deadnettle plants. Some ideal candidates in this regard are pelargonic acid (Scythe), clove oil and acetic acid. It will help if you use products with 5 percent or more acidic concentrations.

These organic postemergence herbicides, though nonselective, can cause damage to actively growing desirable plants in the lawn and landscape. Therefore, you should apply them carefully by restricting their use only to the direct spot treatments.

Various organic products are available in the market now with iron HEDTA (FeHEDTA), and its multiple applications are required to achieve the best results. FeHEDTA is harmful to many greens in your lawns, but it is very effective in weed control.

3.     Chemical Control

If you want to get rid of Purple Deadnettle once and for all, we recommend applying either pre-emergent or post-emergent herbicides.

Post-emergent herbicides work by targeting the epidermal layers of the plant, which means they kill any growing plants. Meanwhile, pre-emergent products stop seeds from germinating and thriving in the first place.

You can avoid using post-emergent herbicides because the deadnettle plant will die naturally in the summer when it’s under excessive heat.


Conclusion

Purple Deadnettle is a weed that is very hard to get rid of because it comes back each year. Some people resort to chemical methods like herbicides or pesticides, while others use biological methods to control this weed.

Cultural control involves hand pulling the weeds, while the aforementioned methods are used if the weed is spread on a larger area.

The detail of these three methods is given in this article. You should use preventive measures to restrict Purple Deadnettle’s growth, but if the weed has already entered unwanted areas, then the application of herbicides will do the trick.

Leave your feedback if this information was helpful. Happy gardening!