A few calls and plant samples have come in during the past week on control of a broadleaf plant with roundish leaves and purple flowers. My first reaction is that this person has ground ivy, but I have seen a lot of henbit this spring which also looks like ground ivy.
Henbit is a winter annual while ground ivy or creeping charlie is a perennial.
We need to tell them apart because ground ivy is a very invasive, hard to control weed, while henbit is considered a rather nonaggressive plant. These two plants are difficult to separate primarily because both produce round, toothed leaves, square stems and opposite leaf arrangement. There are a few differences. First of all, the upper leaves of henbit are attached to the stem, while ground ivy leaves have petioles. Secondly, henbit has hairy leaves, unlike the smooth leaves of ground ivy.