Creeping Charlie vs Chickweed: The Stem Test

Creeping charlie and chickweed are both low, sprawling lawn weeds. The fastest test is the stem: creeping charlie’s stem is square, while chickweed’s stem is round with a line of fine white hairs. Creeping charlie also smells minty when crushed; chickweed does not.

Creeping charlie vs chickweed: the stem test

Roll a stem between your fingers, or cut a short piece and look at the end.

• Creeping charlie: square in cross-section. Both NC State Extension and University of Maryland Extension describe the four-angled stem.
• Chickweed: round, with a line of fine white hairs. NC State notes that the hairs often run down one side of the stem.

The stem test is quick, but do not stop there. Both plants have opposite leaves and both can sprawl across the ground. Check the leaf edge and the flower as well.

Leaves: scalloped or smooth

Creeping charlie leaves are round to kidney-shaped with scalloped edges. They are 0.5 to 1.5 inches across and sit on long stalks. NC State describes a flat notch where the stalk meets the leaf.

Chickweed leaves are oval to broadly elliptic and have smooth, toothless edges. They are usually less than an inch long. The leaves near the tip of the stem are often stalkless.

One more check: crush a leaf. Creeping charlie has a minty or unpleasant smell. Chickweed does not have a mint scent.

Flowers: purple tubes or white stars

Creeping charlie flowers are blue-violet to lavender and tubular. They grow in small clusters where the leaves meet the stem, mainly in spring. UMD describes them as light lavender-purple or blue-purple.

Chickweed flowers are white and about 1/4 inch across. Each flower has five petals that are so deeply divided they look like ten, which gives the flower a star shape. NC State notes that the flowers open in the morning and do not open in dull weather.

If you are looking at a lawn in late winter or early spring and see small white star flowers, chickweed is the better guess. If you see purple tubes among round, scalloped leaves, creeping charlie is the better guess.

Other look-alikes: henbit, purple dead nettle and clover

Chickweed and creeping charlie are not the only low weeds in a spring lawn. Three others come up in the same places.

Henbit and purple dead nettle are both in the mint family, so both have square stems. The easy separation is the leaf attachment: henbit’s upper leaves clasp the stem, while purple dead nettle leaves have short stalks all the way up. NC State also notes that purple dead nettle leaves are usually larger and more heart-shaped.

White clover is not a mint. It has three leaflets and round white flower heads, and it spreads by stems that root at the nodes. It also fixes nitrogen, which is why some lawn owners leave it alone.

Why the life cycle changes the plan

Chickweed is an annual. It grows fast in cool weather, sets seed and dies. NC State describes a shallow fibrous root that makes it easy to pull by hand. The goal is to remove it before it drops seed, or to stop the next generation with a preemergent herbicide labeled for the site.

Creeping charlie is a perennial evergreen. Its runners root at every node, so pulling one patch often leaves rooted pieces behind. UMD says manual removal is possible but not practical for large infestations, and NC State calls it difficult to destroy without herbicides. Expect more than one pass.

Henbit and purple dead nettle are winter annuals. Like chickweed, they are a stop-the-seed problem. A spring pass before the flowers dry can prevent next year’s patch.

For creeping charlie, UMD Extension names 2,4-D, MCPP (mecoprop), dicamba and triclopyr as active ingredients for broadleaf lawn weeds, and says more than one application will probably be needed. Do not spray dicamba over the root zone of trees and shrubs. These are ingredient names from the source, not a rate or a recommendation for your lawn. Follow the product label; the label is the law.

What to do this week

1. Check the stem. Square means creeping charlie or another mint-family weed; round with a line of hairs means chickweed.
2. Check the leaf edge. Scalloped means creeping charlie; smooth means chickweed.
3. Check the flower. Purple tubes mean creeping charlie; white stars mean chickweed.
4. If it is chickweed, pull or treat before it sets seed.
5. If it is creeping charlie, plan for a repeat pass and fix the thin, damp turf that let it in.

For the creeping charlie profile, see creeping charlie. For the henbit comparison, see creeping charlie vs henbit. For other pairs, see look-alikes. For lawn and garden plants by category, see plants, and for removal methods across species, see removal guides.