Lamium
Lamium maculatum
Silver-splashed leaves that carpet dry shade — genuinely useful, and pushy enough to need watching.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Silver and gray · Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Partial shade through to full shade.
- Watering
- Once established it copes with dry ground.
- Feeding
- No feeding — it is vigorous enough already.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Shear it hard once flowering ends, and trim the edges to keep it in bounds.
- Overwintering
- Semi-evergreen, and rarely needs any protection.
- Mar–Apr Spring Growth
- Apr–Aug Flowering
- Aug–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 17.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 17.7 in
- Between rows
- 22 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Shallow roots, spreading on surface runners
- Working depth
- 6–12 in
- Can reach
- 18 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 18 in–2 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 8 in of soil
The roots themselves stay shallow and near the crown; the spreading is done above ground by runners that root wherever they touch. The colony walks outwards while the parent plants age out, so keep the young rooted runners and replace the old ones every few years.
The habit is Lamium’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com