Nursery World - Outdoors: The plants in my street

Nettles are wonderful, says Julie Mountain, who is going to try and convince you to love them as much as she does this March

plant of the month: nettles

Nettles have a bad reputation – admittedly you don't want to get too close to this stinging plant without precautions. But equally, they’re very beneficial in the garden, have all sorts of culinary uses and are genuinely an important part of the ecosystem across the UK and beyond.

Easily recognisable, nettles grow year-round and have an abundance of ‘toothed’, slightly hairy, heart shaped leaves of many different sizes. They can grow quite tall on single stems, and are very invasive – so they’ll colonise any open space or wasteland where they are allowed to grow freely. The leaves are a dull green and the small creamy pale green flowers emerge in April and can last all summer.

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