Mugwort: Don’t Let It Stick around
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In the world of environmentalism, few plants are as despised as Artemisia vulgaris more commonly known as mugwort. This plant ranks in many states as one of the worst plants destroying nature. Some herbalist do have good things to say about the weed. However, for anyone trying to restore native-ish plants to the landscapes of our towns and suburbs, A. vulgaris is a continual problem. It’s difficult to eliminate but there’s a few tricks to help if you find it in your yard.
Goddess of Wild Animals
Artemisia vulgaris derives its name from Artemis (or Diana for the Romans) the Greek goddess of wild animals and the hunt. Vulgaris, in Latin, means “common” as in common people. Vulgaris is commonly used in botanical names of flora species. It’s also the etymology for vulgar. If you research where mugwort is native, you’ll find main sources that say it’s native from Europe, Asia and Africa - with a range that spans from Northern Africa to Iran to Siberia to Japan. I personally don’t think it’s native to all of these places but has naturalized overtime. It’s likely been present for so long it’s pushed out any competing species and established as if it is endemic. I only say this because of how I’ve observed it in the natural landscape.
copyright: Michigan State University
I’ve watched it for years in yards and parks throughout North Jersey. At first, a small individual seedling will appear and for a while only grow fairly short. During this time, it looks completely harmless. If you don’t know what it is, you could easily mistake it for a nice little perennial that’s natural recruited to your garden. However, after 1 to 2 years, that one little stem starts popping up everywhere. That likely friendly looking seedling turns into a tall, crowded misty green fire that takes over the entire garden. The mugwort will flank your favorite plants and begin suffocating them from sunlight from above. Underground, mugwort mats the dirt with thick roots which attack your other flowers from below.
copyright: Mayernik
Once A. vulgaris gets to this stage, the process to eradicate it is tricky. The plant multiples through rhizomatous spread - a scientific way of saying through a system of compact roots. The simple act of pulling the plant out of the ground doesn’t remove the root so it can continue to lodge within the soil. You can try to poison it, but a similar problem arises. You can kill it in one venue but the remaining root don’t stop expanding their reach. And, you don’t want to spray poison all over your garden. However, mugwort does need its leaves to produce energy for its roots to snake through the dirt. So, if you keep it pulled or cut to no taller than a few inches, you can starve its legends of rhizomes. This will get other species to have a fighting chance.
What I’ve found that works best is to undertake a complete weeding of it at least 3 to 4 times a growing season, that is from march to September. I like to pull some of them and cut others. If I’m dealing with a large stand, I will use a garden hoe to both cut them and then clear from from the ground. If I do need to use a hoe, I will pull a few in the area before I scrap the area. I know that pulling them doesn’t do much, but I want to break open the soil so I can sprinkle seed in the mugworts place. I typically have a seed mix of a variety of grasses and flowers. A small pinch into the spot means I’m adding as I take away. There’s a law of nature I’ve learned during my time designing landscapes and that is that there’s no certainty for bare dirt. Something will hatch. If I remove the mugwort and there’s nothing to get its place, I’m just letting it come back. I’ve seen the seed I sprinkle take up residence where the A. vulgaris once stood free. Mugworts destructiveness is superpower only when we ignore it.
copyright: iNaturalist
Don’t Let it Establish
However, mugwort is ignored on the grand scale of the great outdoors. We must be diligent to keep it out of our gardens, but the hard truth is that there’s not much you can do from keeping it from finding your yard again. The best thing to do is when you do see it, you start to manage it from day one. You don’t wait and let it establish because it’s a long hard road to control it after that. So learn what it looks like as a juvenile as well as during the first couple of years before it establishes. When you do identify it, don’t just pull or cut it - plant something in its place…and then repeat until it’s lost the battle to your efforts.