Henbit – A Winter Weed in Mississippi
Image Credit – Mississippi State Extension

I have deliberately planted lamium plants before, and I was momentarily pleased to see the Henbit that had sprouted in patches all around my winter garden. All of my gorgeous flowers had receded into their winter sleep–or had desisted entirely, and the bit of purple seemed refreshing to me, until I did some research that what seemed like a pretty flower was a winter weed.

“Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) is an annual winter broadleaf weed that sometimes gets confused with purple nettle.  It is probably one of the most common winter annual weeds in annual ryegrass pastures along with buttercup.  Henbit has a fibrous root system.  The plant has rounded or triangular leaves and hairy green or purplish square stems with ascending branches.  The leaf margins have rounded teeth with very distinctive veins.” Mississippi State Extension.  Musk Thistle – A Winter Weed in Mississippi
Image Credit – Mississippi State Extension

Not far away from the Henbit, I saw that some thistles were also thriving in my otherwise barren soil. I love to watch thistles grow and bloom, but I have learned that thistle is a noxious weed.

“Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans) is a biennial winter weed also known as nodding thistle and nodding plumeless thistle.  It has a fleshy tap root. Basal rosettes are usually well developed and leaves are dark waxy green, alternate, deeply lobed and spiny white margins.  The leaves also have a very distinctive light green midrib.  This weed can develop a single or several stems from the base of the rosette and highly branched at the top.   Most of the flowers appear in late May to early June.  Flowers form at the top of the stem and they can be deep rose, violet or purple, and occasionally white with lance-shaped spine bracts at the base of the flower.   The seeds are long, shiny, and yellowish-brown with a plume of white-like bristles.  Seed can mature and are dispersed by wind 1 to 3 weeks after flowering.  It prefers moist, bottom land soil, but can also be found on drier uplands.  Musk thistle is a prolific seed producer with approximately 10,000 seeds per plant and a single plant can produce up to 100,000 seeds in one season.  Those seeds could b viable in the soil for up to 10 years.” Mississippi State Extension

I plan to try pulling the above weeds, and today, I sowed a large amount of bachelor button and poppy seeds in the area that has been unplanted–and is vulnerable to these weeds. These two plants did well in other parts of my garden last year:

But I have a rapidly increasing stand of poa annua creeping into areas where I don’t want it.  It is primarily a problem in an area that I want to reserve as a sitting area. I feel that I can spray Spectracide there. I don’t want anything growing in these spots: