Mugwort and Prunella are both perennials that are rhizomes and generally regarded as weeds.
Weeds are often seen as such just because they are the wrong plant in the wrong place. If you are into natural healing and or Chinese medicine then you may have a different view of these plants.
Uses for mugwort
- Used in Ayurvedic medicine and acupuncture in a technique known as moxibustion. The acupuncturist applies heat from the burning leaves to a point on the body.
- It can be used sparingly to flavour food in parts of Europe and Asia and has in the past been used to flavour beer.
Unless you are in to the above or want to stock your own pharmacy you will probably want to get rid of these plants. They spread by rhizomes and are extremely prolific. You may have trouble eliminating them completely but you can certainly reduce them.
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)
Mugwort’s energetic rhizomes can quickly overtake your garden and doesn’t require much in the way of habitat. It will happily take over a row of trees or perennials. It can reach 4 to 6 feet tall each season, and swamp other cultivated plants.
When it first emerges it can be confused with chrysanthemum, with other Artemisia, and even maybe with ragweed.
To identify mugwort look at its leaves, which are bright green on top, but silvery on their undersides. There’s another foliar clue, which is that the lower leaves are less finely cut than the ones at the top of the plant. Again, whether top or bottom leaves, they’ll be green on the upper surface and silver underneath.
The best way to get rid of mugwort is just plain pulling the rhizomes out as they emerge. The easiest time to do this is when the ground is wet so after a rain deluge.
In good weather you can try turning over the soil and hoping the sun dries them out.
Self-heal (prunella vulgaris)
Self heal is a member of the mint family, spreads easily and will happily exist in rougher areas of turf grass.
Like mugwort, prunella also has it’s uses.
Uses for Prunella (Self heal)
- as the name suggests it has been used medicinally. A remedy for immune and skin issues and hypertension when taken as a tea.
- bees and butterflies love its little purple flowers, which develop in early summer so it will attract pollinators into the garden.
In fact the flowers are quite pretty when they appear in early summer, but the late-summer seeds do mean it propagates easily.
When exposed to regular mowing, it adapts to stay just low enough to escape much damage from the blades, staying quite compact, so mowing isn’t a tactic for fighting it.
The roots of Prunella are much easier to deal with than mugwort and you should be able to keep on top of them by regular hoeing in late summer.