Common mouse-ear

How to recognise it

Habit

Perennial of 10–30 cm, with creeping, rooting non-flowering shoots and ascending flower stems; it forms loose little mats.

Leaf

In opposite pairs, oblong to lance-shaped, 1–2.5 cm, without a stalk, dull green and hairy on both sides.

Flower

White flowers of 6–10 mm in loose clusters, with five deeply cleft petals about as long as the hairy sepals, and five styles; from April to September.

Fruit/Seed

A cylindrical, slightly curved capsule, up to twice as long as the calyx, that opens at the top with ten little teeth. Many small brown seeds.

Stem

Softly hairy all round, usually without sticky glandular hairs.

Look-alikes

Sticky mouse-ear is annual, more yellowish green and stickily hairy, with flowers in tight clusters that barely open. Field mouse-ear has larger flowers with petals twice as long as the sepals. Common chickweed has hairless, fresh green leaves, a single line of hairs along the stem and three styles.

Flowering: April–September

Why grow it?

• Flowers for months, from April to September, even in a lawn that is mown regularly.
• Small bees, hoverflies and other flies visit the flowers for nectar and pollen.
• The tiny seeds are food for seed-eating birds.
• A tough, low plant for a flowering lawn, a path or a play lawn: it tolerates trampling and mowing.
• Grows on almost any soil, from sand to clay, and needs no care at all.
• A good plant for learning to look closely: with a hand lens you can see the five styles and the ten little teeth of the capsule.

Common mouse-ear: where does it grow best?

• In the wild in pastures, hay meadows, verges, field margins, dune grassland and on dykes.
• In gardens in lawns, along paths, between paving and in gravel.
• Sun to partial shade; in deep shade it hardly flowers.
• Any soil that is not too wet, from poor sand to heavy clay, low in nutrients to fairly rich.

Goes well with

• Daisy: Together the start of a flowering lawn; flowers from March into autumn.
• White clover: A low source of nectar for bumblebees and bees, which copes just as well with mowing.
• Selfheal: Purple flowers in summer, even in a mown lawn.
• Common bird’s-foot-trefoil: Yellow flowers in poorer, sunny spots; food plant of the common blue.
• Bugle: Blue spikes in May, for the damper and shadier parts.

Common mouse-ear: when and how to plant it?

1. Common mouse-ear usually turns up by itself in a lawn that you feed less and mow less short.
2. If you want to sow it, use a flowering-lawn mix of native species from a seed supplier specialising in wild plants.
3. Sow in September–October or in March–April on raked, open soil; barely rake in the fine seed and firm the soil.
4. Keep the soil moist until the seedlings are up; after that, no watering is needed.
5. You can also move small clumps from your own lawn to bare patches, 20–30 cm apart.
6. Never dig up plants in the wild or on verges.

Care

Water

Not needed; in drought the plant shrinks back a little and grows again after rain.

Feeding

Not needed. On poor soil it holds its own better against grasses.

Mowing

Mow a flowering lawn at 5–6 cm and no more often than every two to three weeks, so it keeps flowering.

Spreading

It does not spread aggressively. If you find it too much in an ornamental border, pull out the little mats; the roots are shallow.

Let it seed

Skip a mowing now and then in May–June, so the little horns can ripen and drop their seed.

Tip: For more mouse-ear and other little flowers in your lawn: stop feeding, mow less often and remove the clippings. After a few years the lawn will flower by itself.

Pruning and mowing

When: Not needed. In a lawn or grassland, normal mowing is enough.

How:

• In a flowering lawn, regularly leave a few weeks between mowings so it can flower and set seed.
• Do not mow shorter than 5 cm: that spares the low shoots.
• In an ornamental border you can simply pull out stems that have finished flowering.

Pruning calendar and basic rules

Propagation

Seed

Sow in autumn or spring on open soil; the seed usually germinates readily.

Division

In March–April or September, dig up a little mat with its roots and replant it in pieces.

Rooting shoots

The creeping shoots root at the nodes; that is how the plant slowly spreads.

Common mouse-ear: how does it get through the winter?

Hardy to −30 °C.

• Stays largely green in winter, with short, hairy, non-flowering shoots pressed to the ground.
• Fully hardy, to about −30 °C.
• In mild weather it sometimes still flowers in October or starts again in March.

Diseases and pests

• Crowded out by grass: In a fed lawn the grasses take over. Stop feeding and remove the clippings.
• Mowing too short: Mown at 2–3 cm it hardly flowers. Raise the mower blades.
• Drought: In a dry summer it shrivels. It recovers after rain; there is no need to water.
• In the border: It can pop up between low plants. Pull out the shallow little mats before they set seed.

Through the year

• March: Sow or divide. The little mats start to grow.
• April: Flowering begins. Mow less often.
• May: Full flower. Skip a mowing.
• June: Flowering; the first little horns full of seed ripen.
• July: Flowering. Do not water in dry weather.
• August: Late flowers. Mow at 5–6 cm.
• September: Last flowers. Sow or divide.
• October: Sow a flowering lawn.
• December: Green shoots overwinter.

Did you know?

• The scientific name Cerastium comes from the Greek word for horn, after the long, slightly curved capsule that sticks out of the calyx like a little horn.
• The English name mouse-ear refers to the small, hairy leaves, which look like the ears of a mouse.
• It is one of the commonest grassland plants in Europe and has travelled with people to other continents too.