Whoever Said Plants Stay Put? They Never Met Up With Lamium

Non-gardeners may labor under the illusion that plants are stationary. You plant them, they put down roots, stay put. Gardeners know better.

Take lamium, for instance ... sigh. Lamiums are among 40 to 50 species of plants in the lamiaceae or mint family. They are sometimes called "spotted leaf deadnettles" because of their resemblance to stinging nettle (no relation whatsoever). My mother gifted me with two types of lamium: a purple and yellow flowering variety, both with green and white patterned leaves. The purple (which prefers sun, as does the white-flowering variety) quickly bit the dust, though that doesn't seem to deter a wild member of the lamium family that shows up all over as a purple carpet in the ditches of the North Fork.  Meanwhile, invasive doesn’t begin to describe what the surviving yellow lamium has been doing planted in beds along with snow-on-the-mountain and another ground cover, pachysandra. When the plant gets too rowdy, I root it out, only to find it reappearing all over the garden. I sometimes think Mom sent that yellow lamium to me to make sure I got my exercise.

To be fair, lamium isn't the only plant in the lamiaceae family with wandering ways.  Ajuga (aka bugleweed, ground pine or carpet bugle) is popular as one of the hardier ground covers, with beautiful bronze-green leaves and bright purple flowers on a stalk similar to lamium. All good, right? Problem is, mine really wanders — as in, those in the shade head for the sun and vice versa, leaving me with enormous bald patches in the beds where they were originally planted.

Bottom line, read the labels on plant stock with a grain of salt. 'Invasive'  in garden-speak is not necessarily  a guarantee of anything. Sometimes 'invasive' just might translate as "too tough to die".  Sometimes, 'migrating"  or even "fickle" might be closer to the truth.