The leaves on burdock plants are some of the largest you are likely to find, getting as large as 12 or 14 inches across. They are dark green, dull, and more or less heart-shaped. The plants vary in height from 1.5 feet to 10 feet tall.
Flowers are small, lavender or pink, and similar in shape to thistle blossoms.
In the fall, burdock plants produce burs about one inch in diameter. Fortunately, burdock plants are quite easy to control because they reproduce only by seed, and take two years to become mature plants. The first year, low-growing plants called rosettes are produced from seed. To control the plants at this point, an application of herbicide is probably easier than digging out the deep taproot. Several good herbicides for this purpose include Safer's Superfast Weed Killer, Finale, and Roundup.