Wildflower - Ground Ivy

What starts out as a project to have a better looking lawn sometimes becomes a never-ending challenge of fighting invasive weeds. While looking for wildflowers to photograph I discovered an abundance small blue flowers growing around and into our lawn. I identified the wildflower as the invasive weed Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea). This weed is also known as creeping Charlie, gill-over-the-ground, alehoof, tunhoof, catsfoot, field balm, and run-away-robin. Ground Ivy is native to Europe and southwestern Asia but has been introduced to North America and is now common in most regions.



Ground Ivy is a member of the Mint family (Lamiaceae) and spreads by forming a low-growing mat of stems and leaves across the ground. This plant is competitive in lawn situations because it creeps along the soil surface and can establish roots at each node (where the leaf attaches to the stem).

The flowers are bluish violet to reddish purple and about ½" in length.



Ground Ivy was also widely used by the Saxons in brewing beer as flavoring, clarification, and preservative, before the introduction of hops for these purposes; thus the brewing-related names, alehoof, tunhoof, and gill-over-the-ground.