Gill Over the Ground – Glechoma hedercea
Join Green Thumb Sundays
Ground Ivy – Cat’s Foot Creeping Charlie
This little mat forming plant is a ?
- A – Weed
- B - Salad Green
- C- Medicinal Plant
- D- Alien Wildflower
- E- Garden Perennial
This is a very aggressive plant spreading by runners. It seems that no area is safe from invasion and will Shock and Awe a lawn and it’s owner by it’s rapid deployment. Brought over to the new world by early settlers Gill Over the Ground has made itself at home over much of the country.
It has a long history of being used as a medicinal plant. It is supposed to be a great spring tonic but I’ve never had the need to try. Spring is enough of a tonic for me. It is also said to have a light taste very agreeable in Salads. High in vitamin C, I guess it wouldn’t hurt me to try some.
For someone with fading eyes the flowers are only tiny specks of purple easily missed from the dizzy height of nearly 6 feet. Up close and personal the blooms are quite pretty. While I often consider this a weed I also like it as a ground cover and let it have some space in my gardens. It does very well in sunny dry places that give other plants a hard time. The clump shown in the photo is growing in not much more than rocky sand along the foundation of the house.
Ground Ivy and some small Violets. The Violet flowers are not quite an inch wide. That gives you some idea how small the Ground Ivy flowers are.
So the answer to the question is – all of the above and more.
7 Responses
Leave a Comment
Comment Feed
You might want to see my response to the stuff people throw in the box
Subscribe in a reader
April 27th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Those flowers are as tiny as the ones I posted that I can’t identify. You might know what they are.
If you try these in a salad, you’re a much braver person than I am lol!
Love the photos!
Happy gardening
April 27th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Thanks for sharing that informative post!
Happy GTS!
April 27th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Very nice up close. The flowers are quite beautiful. Happy GTS!
April 27th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Very informative. This is another plant I’ve never heard of. Thanks for the info and happy GTS,
Aiyana
April 28th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Sounds like a plant for indoor vegetable gardening – especially since it survives in dry soil. Thanks for the info, I’ll ask around to see if I can get my hand on some plants.
April 29th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Many of the lawns around here will soon have wide swaths of these tiny purple flowers. It grows where I can’t get grass to grow so it is welcome – in the lawn. I wish it would stay out of the garden.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Around here we call it “Creeping Charlie.” I have hand pulled it out of my lawn, but the real problem is how it invades the garden beds from the neighboring properties. I have to continually yank it out or it strangles my wildflowers. (It smells bad too.)