How to Get Rid of Creeping Charlie: Hand-Pulling & Herbicide

Hand-Pulling Creeping Charlie

Hand-pulling is one of the most common—and pet-safe—ways to get rid of creeping Charlie. You'll likely have to repeat the process to permanently get rid of creeping Charlie plants if you see new growth emerging, but the upside is you won't kill your grass in the process like chemical methods can.

1. Trim the Leaves and Stems

   Trim the leaves and creeping stems from the plant with your gardening shears, leaving just enough above the ground to pull with your hands. Place the trimmings in a lawn waste bag.

2. Soak the Area

   Using a garden hose, soak the area with the creeping Charlie. Make sure to thoroughly saturate the soil, and wait about 30 to 60 minutes before proceeding.

3. Loosen Soil

   Loosen the soil with a pitchfork to expose some of the roots and rhizomes (little white roots).

4. Remove the Roots

   Grasp the plant at its base, and pull up to remove the roots. If the roots are particularly deep, rework the soil with the pitchfork, so you can remove them all in one pull. Place the entire plant and its roots in the lawn waste bag.

5. Inspect the Area

   With a garden trowel or weed tool, inspect the area for any leftover rhizomes and remove them. Removing all the rhizomes you see will make any subsequent elimination efforts easier.

Killing Creeping Charlie With Herbicide

An herbicide or weed-control product can kill creeping Charlie the best, especially if the patch is too large to hand-pull. You can opt for a method that effectively gets rid of everything in the area, but that means it will kill your grass and you'll have to restart your lawn from scratch. Or you can selectively spray the creeping Charlie with a lawn-friendly product, following the manufacturer's directions. An herbicide that contains dicamba or 2,4-D will usually be successful for killing creeping Charlie.

1. Mix Herbicide With Water

   Place the herbicide into a pump sprayer, and mix it with water per the manufacturer's instructions. Be precise. Too much product can harm your soil, and too little might not kill the creeping Charlie plants. Use protective eyewear and gloves when handling chemicals.

2. Spray

   Spray the herbicide onto the creeping Charlie, concentrating on the leaves and stems and allowing the solution to soak down to the roots. Be careful of overspray, so you don't hit any nearby foliage you want to keep.

   If creeping Charlie appears in flower beds or adjacent to ornamental plants, use a large piece of cardboard to shield your garden plants from overspray.

3. Leave the Area Alone

   Leave the treated area for winter. Then, in the spring rake up any leftover weed debris. Till and amend the soil with a nitrogen-fixing natural fertilizer. Then, replant or reseed your lawn.

How to Prevent Creeping Charlie From Coming Back

If you're hand-pulling creeping Charlie, check the area at least weekly for regrowth. Pull it out and dispose of it as you see it. The more you can disrupt the plant's growth and stop it from getting nutrients, the easier it will be to prevent the creeping Charlie from coming back. Moreover, if you're going the herbicide route, you can use a pre-emergent weed killer in the spring to help prevent regrowth. 

It's also important to maintain a healthy lawn to give it a better shot at fighting encroachment from creeping Charlie plants. Ensure that your grass is cut to an appropriate height and is sufficiently watered and fed throughout the growing season.

If grass doesn't grow well in a particular area—because of too much shade or poor drainage, for example—look for plants that thrive in those conditions. This can help to prevent creeping Charlie from moving in. 

Tips for Getting Rid of Creeping Charlie

When hand-pulling, remember that even the tiniest piece of rhizome left behind will eventually shoot up as a new plant. In most cases, creeping Charlie will likely return after the first hand-pulling. So keep an eye on the area to catch new plants as soon as possible. It takes determination, but eventually you will wear down the creeping Charlie and permanently get rid of it.

For the chemical control of creeping Charlie in lawns, use a selective broadleaf weed killer that works specifically on creeping Charlie. And make sure the product is suitable to use on the variety of grass you grow. Many broadleaf weed killers can be applied more than once in a season with a minimum waiting period between applications. Furthermore, observe the recommended waiting period before reseeding a lawn or starting any other plants after using a chemical product. Avoid starting edible plants in the area unless your product specifically says it's safe for them.

Creeping Charlie’s Value to Pollinators

Creeping Charlie does not offer a lot of value to pollinators, but the fact that a large patch of creeping Charlie often has a significant amount of buzzing in the air will make you think it is a beneficial plant.

Creeping Charlie does not uniformly contain much nectar, but its growth brings about the "lucky hit" method of pollination. In a patch of creeping Charlie, the one remaining flower that was not suffocated by the creeping Charlie will account for all the nectar in the area. A bee can rely on one lucky hit in a creeping Charlie patch to get all the nectar it needs, rather than going from flower to flower in another location, getting a little bit at a time. A bee will then spend a good amount of time looking for that lucky hit before it finds the plant, hence all the extra buzzing in one area.

Additionally, creeping Charlie pollen is not readily bioavailable to bees and other insects that would (if they could access it) rely on it as a main source of protein. This, combined with the tendency for creeping Charlie to overcrowd any other plants from an area, leaves pollinators without a pollen source.

The best way to support pollinators is with biodiversity and providing a variety of choices to feed off of; creeping Charlie does not allow that to happen.